


Not Just Another Fake Boyfriend Story

by SoapMaster



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:20:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9411137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoapMaster/pseuds/SoapMaster
Summary: Originally posted to FFN.Sasuke thinks he has a brilliant idea to get rid of his fan girls. But he could never imagine the consequences...Read the author's note.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not Just Another Fake Boyfriend Story was first published on FanFiction.Net in 2010. I'm in the process of moving all my works from FanFiction.Net to ArchiveOfOurOwn, so I will be "updating" (really just re-betaing it to catch any mistsakes) and posting the chapters here twice-a- week. Once the story is fully posted, I will begin posting the sequel, which has not yet been posted anywhere.
> 
> Some references may be a little bit dated, so forgive me. Please give me your feedback, positive or negative, I love getting comments (and kudos, if you enjoy it).
> 
> Blanket Warning: This story will involve adult themes and issues. Such issues include explicit sexuality, rape, mental illness, organized crime, and death. Oh, and there's a homosexuality, so if that puts you off, you should avoid this.
> 
> At the start of the story, I'd like to thank everyone who has helped with this story. I've had three betas: LoveUntilWeBleed, Merciless Angels Never Cry, and SingingSparklyKuma, all of whom betaed different chapters for me at different times. I'd also like to thank everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed the story.

**Chapter One: Fucking Fangirls!**

Sasuke Uchiha wasn't in a very good mood this morning, although that's hardly unusual. He's not exactly what one would call a "morning person", and he's certainly not what one would call a "people person". So of course, when he is forced to spend time with people in the morning, he's going to be miserable.

It didn't improve things that he was being mobbed by about three or four girls at the moment. If there was any particular type of person he loathed more than any other, it would be girls, or at least the ones around here. He couldn't go anywhere without some fangirl following him, whether he was in class, at home, or using the fucking _bathroom_!

Sasuke hated mornings, people, and fan girls. And wouldn't you know that going to school daily involved all three of those.

He didn't dislike school because of the schoolwork, though, which is probably unusual. If he wasn't cursed with good looks, he'd actually be the definition of a geek. He likes his physics class, and his calculus class is the height of his day. He enjoys history, and even his English class is interesting. So it's not really the _schoolwork_ that gives him his distaste for school at all.

Mostly, he dislikes the _people_ at the school, and, more importantly, how much free time some of these girls have on their hands. They must be cutting class to pester him, because they're around him nearly 24/7. At this very moment, he was being surrounded by six of his fangirls who wanted nothing more than for him to realize that he was madly in love with them. Ha! As if!

"Get your hand off Sasuke!" one of them – a girl with orange hair and really weird glasses – said to the others. "He's going to get mad if you keep trying to tear us apart.

"Shut _up_ Sasame!" another one, a girl with black hair and blue eyes, said to the first one. "I saw him first, and we all know that it was love at first sight with Sasuke." She looked at her crush with hearts almost visible in her eyes. He rolled his own eyes in response.

"Yeah, he fell in love…with _me_ ," exclaimed a redheaded girl with red glasses and red eyes. "Just admit Sasuke belongs with me and leave us alone!" Another girl was about to protest, but Sasuke seemed to have had enough. One of them was trying to grope him as he walked down the lunch line getting food, and the others were trying to pet him like a dog. _Why the fuck does this happen to me? There have to be better looking guys at this school than me!_

"Will you get OFF me?" he yelled at the top of his lungs, startling everybody in the room. Suddenly, Sasuke felt all eyes on him as the fangirls quieted and watched their idol like an erupting volcano.

"Look what you _did_ Tsure," the redhead muttered. "You got him all mad!"

Sasuke ignored her, choosing instead to take his tray the table his friends were sitting at. If he stayed, he'd probably end up in prison for murder. Those girls are the most annoying human beings he'd ever seen! Especially when they squeal. Whose idea was it to bestow vocal chords to the female gender?

He had to wonder what's wrong with them. Every day, they all hound him like sharks smelling blood in the water, and every day he tells them to fuck off or go to hell or leave him the fuck alone. But do they get the picture? Of course not. Why would they leave him alone just because he tells them daily that he has no desire to be anywhere near them? That would be logical, and if there's anything a fangirl is lacking, it's logic.

It seemed these fangirls got rowdier and rowdier every day, and Sasuke was at a loss about what to do. They'd already managed to get past the privacy block on his facebook, find out his e-mail address and phone number, and even found out where he _lives_. Did celebrities have this much trouble with fans? He sighed and continued walking towards his table, angrily throwing down his tray as he approached.

"Fan girls again?" asked Sasuke's friend, Neji, when Sasuke sat down across from him. Neji was the first friend Sasuke ever made, and, although they weren't _best_ friends, Neji had always been there for Sasuke. Even after the fan girls trampled Neji in the mall just to get to Sasuke, Neji didn't care much. He just learned to never stand between a fangirl and the object of her obsession.

Neji was probably the one person in the school richer than him. Not that it was Neji's money, of course – it was all his father's. Hiashi Hyuga owned Hyuga Corp, a corporate conglomerate in the same vein as Viacom, Proctor & Gamble, or General Electric. If Neji's father wasn't a billionaire, he was certainly a millionaire, although the subject of money rarely came up between them.

Neji's cousin, Hinata, sat next to him. Hinata Hyuga might have been the shiest person Sasuke ever met, and that suited him just fine. The shier a girl was, the less likely she would turn out to be a rabid fan girl. In fact, she might be the one girl that never went crazy over him. She had a slight crush on him for a while, but she was never bold enough to accost Sasuke like his other fangirls.

On Neji's other side was his girlfriend, Tenten. The two had been close friends since they were in karate together in middle school, and they had grown closer since high school started. She and Neji had started officially going out last year, and ever since then, the two had been inseparable. Tenten was shy to really open up and become friends with the whole group, but now she was very pleasant and outgoing.

Sasuke sat down next to Gaara, who was much quieter than Neji, Hinata, and Tenten. He wasn't shy like Hinata was, but he didn't really speak unless he had reason to. He's pretty easy to talk to, though. Gaara was the closest Sasuke came to a best friend, mostly because he and Gaara had so much in common, including their distaste for loud, obnoxious, clingy fan girls.

On Gaara's other side was Sakura Haruno, an attractive, smart girl with pink hair. She's another one of the few girls Sasuke doesn't constantly want to throw off a skyscraper. She had been a fangirl throughout elementary and middle school, but around sophomore year, she decided to cool down. She eventually became friends with them due to her friendship with Hinata.

"I wish I could just do something to make them go away," Sasuke grumbled as he ate his pasta. "Is it too much to ask for a little peace and quiet for the last semester of high school?"

"You know what you need to do," Sakura began, sounding as if she had a piece of sagely wisdom she was going to impart on him. Heh, as if. Every idea she came up with for this problem was ridiculous. Sasuke raised his eyebrow in response, waiting to hear what brilliant suggestion the ex-fangirl had to deter his current ones. "You need to just go out with someone and they'll leave you alone." He sighed. She'd already suggested that, and it was still not going to happen.

"Yeah, because it's _that_ easy," Tenten said sarcastically. "There are only three girls who aren't in love with him, and we're sitting at this table." Sakura waved the dismissal away with her hand. She always got like this whenever an idea of hers was shut down.

"It's better than nothing," Sakura said. She got quiet for a bit, but spoke up once more with another plan of action that was equally flawed. "You could always pretend to be gay, and then they'd have to leave you alone. Not even _they_ could be so delusional as to believe that they'd stand a chance with a gay guy." That idea received a ton of eye rolling from the table, and a pointed glare from Sasuke in her direction.

It wasn't that she suggested ruining his reputation or flipping his life upside down that had upset him, because he really didn't give a flying fuck about that. He would really have no problem doing that if it wasn't for one small little issue. He _is_ gay. Only Sakura and Gaara know about it, and they both know that Sasuke wants to keep it a secret as long as possible. Neji and Hinata came from a very old-fashioned, conservative family, and he didn't know how they'd react. And then there was his brother, although Itachi probably wouldn't care – he never really cared about Sasuke all that much.

"I'm not gay," Sasuke said, mostly for the benefit of Neji and Hinata, the words accompanied by a pointed glare that said 'ixnay on the aygay in front of the ejinay and inatahay'.

"Does it really matter?" Sakura asked, unfazed by the glare. "It's not like it'll really ruin your reputation – we're seniors, so no one's really going to care. It's just high school."

"I think I'll take my chances with the crazy fan girls," Sasuke replied.

"Fine," she said with a shrug. She looked over her shoulder and her eyes landed on a blond haired boy who was sitting across the room. His eyes were trained on their table, but he quickly looked away, some color on his cheeks. She smirked and turned to Hinata. "I think Naruto might have a crush on you," she whispered to her loudly enough for their entire table to ear, causing the shy girl to blush profusely. As always, Sakura's obliviousness was astounding.

"He's obviously staring at you," Sasuke said with a scoff. He'd caught Naruto staring at Sakura before, but it didn't really matter. Sakura had eyes for only one guy in the entire school, and he was sitting at the table, holding hands with his girlfriend underneath the table. Poor girl. She turned around once more to look at Naruto, who was now eating his food and focusing on his own friends.

"He _is_ pretty hot, I guess," she said as she turned around. "There's no doubt about that, right, Sasuke?" Sasuke sent her another pointed look, which seemed to be enough to make her shut up.

"If he's so hot, then why am _I_ the one with fangirls?" the Uchiha grumbled, still trying to figure out a way out of the current situation. He knew that even if he took Sakura's suggestion to come out, it wouldn't work. The fangirls would be blinded by illusions of turning him straight. If anything, it'll make them want Sasuke more. You know, the whole adage about wanting what we can't have.

Before the conversation could go any further, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. Sasuke's next class was history, which he had with Hinata and Sakura. There were other kids in the class, of course, but Sasuke didn't really care about any of them. The only one who actually made an impression on him was this kid who was too lazy to show up to class most days but still got straight A's. He's the reason why Sasuke is going to be salutatorian and not valedictorian.

Their teacher, Iruka one of the nicest teachers in the whole school. He let anyone get away with almost anything, and a lot of people walked over him like a doormat. His complacent attitude actually backfired when it came to Sasuke, because that meant that he let the fangirls sit next to the poor Uchiha and talk to him the _entire_ class. Sasuke liked to show up late most days so that he could sit in a spot that has no open seats around it. If he went early, the girls would all sit near him, and he'd start contemplating ways to kill them all again.

As Sasuke walked, he heard a fangirl shriek his name, and he winced at the sheer volume. Was this the mating call of the wild fangirl? Sasuke turned to see which fangirl it was, starting to get randomly angry at the whole situation. They must be of another species – one that lacked common sense and social skills.

"Sasuke-kun!" said the red haired fangirl who had been bothering him at lunch. He vaguely recognized her as having harassed him in history class, and he sighed. "I was wondering if you wanted to sit next to me in history today," she offered, flipping her hair in a flirtatious manner. Sasuke rolled his eyes and grunted a response that was supposed to sound like 'no', but must have ended up sounding like 'Sure, and afterwards we can go out to dinner and have sex on the beach,' if her giggling meant anything.

Sasuke decided he had to be explicit with them, as they would take anything that wasn't flat out rejection as encouragement, and the last thing he needed to do was encourage them. He shuddered just thinking about that. "I'm already sitting next to somebody else."

"Aw," she said, pouting. If there was anything worse than the shrieking and squealing, it had to be the coy pouts that were meant to look cute. It had to be a girl thing because they all did it any time he turned them down. "Please, Sa-su-ke-kun?" Oh, he _really_ hated that. He couldn't go a day without someone 'playfully' annunciating every single syllable of his name. He wondered – not for the first time – if the fact that she was annoying could make it justifiable homicide. Because quite frankly, he felt quite inclined to push her down the stairs.

"No," he insisted, turning away to make it to history class. Of course, she'd have to follow him to get there too, but he didn't really care. He was followed by so many girls that he was used to it. It wasn't the following that got him anymore, so much as it was the verbal and physical harassment.

He finally arrived at his history class, and he noticed that there were three seats. Two of them were next to each other, and he knew that if he sat at either one, that girl (Koren or Keisha or something…he didn't really remember) would take the other one, and he'd be forced to kill either her or himself. The third seat was in the back and was situated between the school genius who showed up for once and Naruto. Sighing, he walked towards the and sat down as the bell rang.

"It's time for your quarterly assignments," Iruka said. "For this project, you will be in pairs that _I_ choose." A chorus of 'awws' were heard through the classroom. "Your assignment will be an individual research paper and a twenty minute presentation in class on a historical figure of your choice."

Iruka-sensei opened his mouth to continue, but stopped when he saw Naruto raise his hand. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his scarred nose before speaking. "No, Naruto. Ichigo Kurosaki is _not_ a historical figure." His unasked question having been answered, Naruto lowered his hand, a small giggle erupting through the classroom.

"Now, I am going to start assigning the partners," Iruka said. "Aburame Shino and Akimichi Choji." Sasuke spaced out, choosing to wait until he heard his name to pay attention. Until then, he was going to try and think about how to solve hisfangirl problems.

In theory, both of Sakura's ideas were good. Getting a girl to pretend to date him would logically make the fangirls give up, as would coming out as gay. Unfortunately, if he chose option #1, he would be hard-pressed to find a girl who wasn't annoying to go out with him. And then there was the problem that would arise should fangirls begin to threaten and harass her for dating him. As for option #2, he wasn't sure whether coming out would stop them like she hoped, or encourage them, as he feared.

Other than just massacring them all, those were the only two ideas that were even feasible. There needed to be some tweaking of one plan or the other to eliminate the flaws. Maybe find a girl who is not annoying and strong enough to defend herself. But that would only leave Sakura, and he wasn't sure whether he'd want to pretend to date her or not. That would probably be awkward. As for the other plan, coming out would be an empty gesture, and they'd all hold out hope unless he decided to date someone, and there was nobody he was even remotely interested in.

"Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto," Iruka-sensei continued, causing Sasuke to sigh in disappointment. With Naruto as his partner, he'd be doing all the work, or he'd have to really stay on top of the blond to make sure he was doing what he was supposed to. He's very energetic (see: annoying), and he's not exactly the brightest bulb in the box if you catch his drift. Still, it could be worse. He could be with Karin, or another fangirl.

"As I was saying, this assignment has multiple components," Iruka continued. "There's the research component, the presentation component, and the reflection component. You will decide with your partner on a historical figure that has helped shape America's history, and you will do extensive research on that person. You will compile the research into a research paper. Afterwards, we will have two presentations per class period, where you will each tell the class about the life and historical impact of the person you chose. Once you decide on a figure, tell me. No two groups can do the same person, and the selection will be first come, first serve. After your presentation, I want a two page reflection on your project. Tell me what you think you did well and what you think could have used improvement. If you were to grade this yourself, what would you give yourself? How would you rate your partner? What did/didn't they do that contributed in a positive/negative way to the efforts of the group?"

Sasuke began to tune out once more as the teacher went on. He began answering questions about the assignment, giving Sasuke more time to think about his problem. Continuing with his previous train of thought, the only way coming out would achieve anything would be if he decided to date someone. And since he wasn't interested in anyone, he would have to find someone to pretend to be his boyfriend, almost like a combination of Sakura's two ideas.

Sasuke stopped for a second. This train of thought had some merit. Guys, he found, were generally much less annoying than girls, and it was more unlikely that a fangirl would threaten a guy pretending to be his boyfriend than threaten a girl pretending to be his girlfriend. He slowly saw the holes in the two plans close as they meshed, but one problem still remained.

If he told Neji and Hinata that he was gay and their conservative values ruined their friendship with Sasuke, he didn't know what he'd do.

Suddenly, an idea came to him. If they react positively to him coming out, there would be no problem. If they didn't, then he could always back-track and tell them that it was all a plan to stop the fangirls. It sort of was, so it's not really a lie. It was perfect!

But who would decide to pretend to date him? Certainly not Neji, and probably not Gaara. They were too close to pretend to date, and it would be all sorts of awkward. He looked over at the boy sitting next to him, Shikamaru, and smirked. If he announced that he and Shikamaru were dating, the other boy would probably find it too bothersome to debunk rumors. It's not like he showed up enough for people to ask him questions anyway. He shook his head at the ridiculous thought, though. He did still have a reputation to uphold.

Eventually, Iruka-sensei stopped talking, and he gave the students the rest of the period to talk over the assignment with their partners. Sasuke sighed and turned to Naruto; he had to make his first priority in this project laying down the law for Naruto. He would _not_ let him get an A off of all _Sasuke's_ work while he did nothing.

"Come over to my house after school and we can start working on our project," Sasuke told Naruto, not leaving any room for discussion.

"Hi to you too," he said sarcastically. "Today's not really a good day for me, so I'll try to drop by over the weekend or something."

"No," Sasuke said, his voice authoritative. It was like training a dog – he had to show Naruto that he wasn't in control. He had to tell him that he couldn't be blasé about this. This was a serious assignment, and Sasuke wasn't doing everything for him.

"You're a pretty bossy bastard," Naruto said. "It's a wonder all the girls drool over you. They must find that stick up your ass attractive." Sasuke clenched his fists and gritted his teeth while sending the blond a glare. "You must be deaf too, because I told you I can't come."

"Why not?" Sasuke asked, daring Naruto to give him a valid excuse. "What else is more important than 10% of your grade?"

"Well, if you must know, I'm hanging out with my friends," Naruto said as if he had just spoken the magic words to make Sasuke submit to his demands. Oh, how wrong he was.

"You'll be coming over to my house afterschool," Sasuke repeated. "If you don't come, I'll just have to remember to put that in my reflection about my partner. 'We got off on the wrong foot when he decided that hanging out with his friends was more important than actually doing work.'" Naruto sent Sasuke a look that was a mixture between a glare and a pout, but Sasuke brushed it off. The bell rang, stopping the chance of Naruto saying anything more on the topic. Sasuke collected his books and walked out in the hallway towards his next class.

Psychology with Kakashi. It was the only elective he took, as it was the easiest A he could receive. After all, Kakashi always came to class 10-15 minutes late, and he was like an uncle to him. No, not like an uncle. He was like a father to the youngest Uchiha, but he wasn't forced to help him out because of his blood, he chose to. Ever since his parents died, he had been very close to Sasuke and his brother Itachi. As for the class itself, it was pretty interesting.

Most of his friends were in the class – Neji, Sakura, and Tenten. Naruto was in that class too, as were a few of his friends. The genius Shikamaru was there too, but he usually skipped or slept. And a few days after the semester began, Karin transferred in, probably to continue stalking Sasuke.

Anyway, he got in and sat in his usual seat – next to Sakura and Neji, behind Hinata. This was his favorite class, mostly because most of his friends were there.

"Hey Sasuke," Neji said as the Uchiha sat down. "How was history?"

"Hn," Sasuke grunted. "We were put in pairs for an assignment."

"Oh yeah," Sakura said, as if she forgot about it altogether. It was just five minutes ago! "Who's your partner?"

"Your favorite blond, Naruto Uzumaki," he scoffed. "Of course I got stuck with the dumbass who won't do any work."

"Of course you can get him to do work," Neji said with a smirk. "Just promise him that you'll put in a good word with Sakura if he does his assignment and he'll do it. You can have him wrapped around your finger and make him do _anything_. He'd probably do the entire assignment himself."

That's true. Sasuke never thought of it that way. If he could get Sakura to promise one single date between the two of them, Sasuke could have Naruto do whatever he wanted. Teenage guys were so easy to manipulate – all you had to do was get them a date or a hook-up with whoever they wanted. And it just so happened Naruto wanted Sasuke's friend.

"Sasuke!" yelled a voice from the back row. Recognizing it as his history partner's, the Uchiha turned to look at him. "How the hell am I supposed to know where you live?" _Oh yeah. I forgot about that,_ Sasuke said to himself.

"Just follow me in my car after school," he said with a shrug.

"I don't even know which car is yours," he said, causing the raven to roll his eyes. Seriously, was this kid fucking retarded?

"We have health together as our last class," Sasuke said angrily. "Just follow me to my car." He started to rub his temples, willing his headache to go away. It was like any time he spoke he had to be loud. Maybe Sasuke was just allergic to his loudness…could he use that as an excuse to get another partner?

"Fine!" Naruto exclaimed in an offended tone of voice. "You don't have to be an ass about it!" Sasuke growled, his increasing volume not helping his headache any. Instead of continuing to talk to him, Sasuke chose to turn his back towards him and return talking to his friends.

It ended up being one of those days when Kakashi was later than usual. After going over the homework and handing back last week's test (Sasuke got 99), there was no time left to class.

All that was left to his day was Health with Jiraya. He was the brother of the music teacher, Orochimaru, and the principal, Tsunade. He must have gotten his job because of nepotism, because hiring that pervert as a health teacher was wrong on so many levels.

"Alright class, how was your weekend?" he asked after the bell rang. No one answered him, as usual, knowing what he'd say next. "Any of you have sex?" The first day he said it, some people gaped and looked at each other. The second time he said it, it was still mortifying to some people, but entertaining to others. But he said it each and every Monday, and the shock had worn off. It was as casual as 'how's the weather' to his students by now.

"Today, we will be discussing female anatomy," he announced.

"Of course," Sasuke muttered. Every day it was the same lesson over and over again. Female anatomy again and again and again. It wasn't just Sasuke who was sick about hearing about vaginas – even the straight kids in the room were pretty fed up by this point.

"Hey Jiraya!" Naruto called from the back of the room. Sasuke sighed and put his head down. Of course Naruto would call Jiraya by his first name. He did it to everybody. All the students called the teachers by their first name outside of class, but to their face, they were always 'Mr. Sannin' or 'Mr. Umino' or 'Mr. Hatake.'

"How many times have I told you, brat?" Jiraya asked angrily. "You can't call me 'Jiraya' in class!"

"Fine, Ero-sensei," Naruto said with a grin. Jiraya was going to make an angry comment about the nickname, but Naruto continued. "When are you going to actually teach us something? We've been 'studying female anatomy' for five weeks now."

"Would you rather look at male anatomy?" Jiraya-sensei asked with a wriggle of his eyebrows, causing Naruto to hilariously blush for a moment.

"N-No!" Naruto sputtered. "But it's awkward for us to sit here while you just look at porn on the projector. I mean, jeez, you're almost as bad as Ebisu."

"Mr. Ebisu," Jiraya corrected. The two continued arguing but Sasuke tuned them out. Eventually, Jiraya got the idiot to shut up, though. The rest of the class was the boring fashion he'd always taught, putting up pictures (not diagrams, pictures) of the different sexual areas of a girl's body on the board. No new information to learn, of course, but he did it all anyway. In a way, Naruto had a point. It wasn't that Sasuke wanted to look at pictures of guys in the middle of a classroom, but constantly seeing the same pictures day after day was getting pretty fucking old.

At the sound of the final bell, Jiraya gave them his usual salute as the students exited. "Have a nice day, class. And remember – don't be silly, wrap your willy."

After school, Naruto followed Sasuke to his car, which happened to be parked near Naruto's own car. They both got in their respective cars and drove towards Sasuke's house, the raven leading the way. There was little traffic, and in less than a half hour, the two arrived at Sasuke's house. They got out of their respective cars and Sasuke made a sweeping motion with his hands.

"Welcome to the Uchiha Mansion," he said in a bored tone, deciding to show that moron how excited he was to breathe the same air as him. Sasuke's main mission as he entered the mansion was to avoid his brother Itachi, but it seemed fate had a better idea, as Itachi was coming down the stairs as he opened the door.

"Hello Sasuke," Itachi said, sounding carefree, as he climbed down the steps. "Who's your friend?" He looked Naruto up and down, as if he was appraising an art piece.

Before Naruto could answer, Sasuke spoke up. "His name's Naruto. He's going to be working with me on a project. And he's _not_ a friend."

"I'm right here," Naruto muttered as Sasuke glared at his brother. Itachi just gave his brother an evil smirk, and Sasuke knew right then that his brother would try to embarrass him. Itachi had this habit whenever Sasuke brought someone over to say or do something outrageously humiliating, and it usually worked.

Sasuke grabbed Naruto's wrist and pulled him quickly. He dragged Naruto up the stairs, past Itachi, hoping to get away before Itachi said something horrifically embarrassing. It didn't work.

"I know you're in a rush to get your boyfriend all to yourself," Itachi mused as Sasuke pushed past him, "but there's no reason to be so rude."

"B-Boyfriend?" Naruto asked, sounding as if he had just gotten the wind knocked out of him. And there it was. In his effort to avoid getting embarrassed by Itachi, Sasuke managed to give Itachi some material to use. As soon as the word 'boyfriend' left Itachi's lips, he let go of Naruto and turned back around to glare at his brother.

"Itachi," Sasuke growled warningly. "If you don't stop, I might just have to send those pictures of you at Sasori's Halloween party to the press." Itachi noticeably paled, and Sasuke wasted no time in dragging the blond up to his room and away from his brother. Sasuke knew that threat would quiet him for now, but he was likely to do something else later on.

You might be wondering what those pictures Sasuke threatened to release were of. Well, you see, most people dress _up_ for Halloween. But after a few drinks, Itachi decided to dress _down_ …a lot. And then, he somehow managed to sneak into a zoo in his nude and drunken state with his friends. That would be a bad enough combination normally, and it didn't help matters that they had an electric razor. When Sasuke had to come pick them up, he'd never seen a more confused monkey. Of course, he had to take many pictures to use for blackmail. It came in handy sometimes, like that very moment.

After the door to Sasuke's bedroom closed, Sasuke threw his bag on the ground and pulled out his textbook, hoping to get a head start on the project. But first thing's first – they had to decide upon a topic for their report.

"Alright, first we have to find a figure in American history that was extremely significant," Sasuke said, already having one particular person in mind.

"How about Abraham Lincoln?" Naruto suggested, choosing to flop himself down on Sasuke's bed as the latter rolled his eyes. That was exactly what he'd expect such an idiot to say. Isn't that so cliché, choosing Abe Lincoln as a significant figure in American history?

"I was thinking more like Alexander Hamilton," Sasuke said, sending Naruto a pointed glare as he kicked his shoes off and yawned. The shoes fell off the bed and thudded on Sasuke's floor.

"Never heard of him," Naruto said after the yawn as he closed his eyes. Why didn't it surprise Sasuke that Naruto never heard of Alexander Hamilton?

"Do you ever pay attention in class?" Sasuke asked, getting annoyed at how lazy and rude Naruto was being. They'd only been in the house, like, two minutes, and he was already one of the worst guests Sasuke had ever had.

"Not often," Naruto admitted. Again, this didn't come as much of a shock to Sasuke.

"You're such a moron," the Uchiha muttered, not understanding how Naruto didn't remember Alexander Hamilton. Iruka had spent days talking about Hamilton and the federalists and the First National Bank. How could he not remember that?

"Don't call me a moron," Naruto scowled, his eyes still closed. "You're just a stuck up bastard who thinks he's hot shit because he has a fan club, when in reality he's just a big nerd."

"I'm not a nerd just because you're an idiot," Sasuke argued. "Maybe if you had even one functional brain cell, I wouldn't seem like so much smarter than you."

"You practically force me to come over to your house just to be an asshole to me?" Naruto asked. "Clearly your parents never taught you manners."

Sasuke froze up at this. Sure, Naruto probably didn't know about it, but that didn't really matter much. He didn't need another reminder that his parents died. If he paid attention to the news as much as he paid attention to class, he wouldn't have heard about the famous Uchiha car bombing, but Naruto was probably the one person in this whole city who didn't know about it.

"Where are your parents anyway?" Naruto asked, stretching and making himself comfortable on Sasuke's bed. After a couple seconds of silence, he opened his left eye and looked at the Uchiha, expecting an answer.

"They're dead," Sasuke said, his voice void of emotion. He didn't even know why he told him. It's not like Naruto knew him or vise versa. It was none of his business. But upon hearing Sasuke's words, his eyes popped open and he sat up, his feet hanging over the side of the bed.

"I-I'm sorry," Naruto said, looking down. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, you shouldn't have," Sasuke agreed, his mind drifting far from the assignment until he heard his bedroom door get flung open. He turned with his glare in place, ready to yell at Itachi for his intrusion, when he saw something that made him scowl. "Korin?" he asked, recognizing the girl who always stalked me.

"It's Karin," she reminded her obsession. "But you're getting closer. Last time, you called me Koko." She ran over and gave Sasuke a hug, leaving Naruto speechless as to what was going on.

"She's your girlfriend?" Naruto asked Sasuke in surprise, making him grimace and Karin hold tighter.

"Yes," she said at the exact time Sasuke yelled "No!"

"How the hell did you get in my house?" he asked, trying to free himself from her grip.

"I rang your doorbell and your brother let me in," she said simply with a shrug. "I guess your brother approves of our undying love, Sasuke-kun. We can finally be together." She pulled herself away and sat down on Sasuke's bed next to the blond idiot.

"What the hell would give you the idea that I'd _want_ to be with you?" Sasuke yelled, completely forgetting about the fact that Naruto was there. When the fangirls begin invading your house, it's time to start prioritizing. "I've done nothing short of calling you a fat, ugly bitch, and you still constantly stalk me like a fucking psychopath! Get the hell out of here!"

"B-But Sasuke-kun," she said, her lower lip trembling. Oh no, not the pouting again. "I can't leave, because if I do, Sasame and Tsure said that they'll take _their_ chance to have you, and we both know you love me, not them."

"Is she for real?" Naruto asked, but Karin and Sasuke both ignored him.

"I don't love any of you!" Sasuke exclaimed. "How delusional are you?"

"Don't say that, Sasuke-kun," she said. "You know I love you." She stood up to caress the Uchiha's cheek, but was interrupted by loud pitched squealing. Well, that's just great. In the last minute Sasuke has been graced with his two all time favorite things: high pitched squeals and pouting faces. Oh joy.

"Is that Sasuke-kun?" a girl with orange hair asked. Damn, that was that Sasame girl. And right behind her was…you guessed it…Tsure.

"Of course it is," Tsure said. "I _told_ you I could find out his address." The two started running towards Sasuke, practically jumping on top of him. He couldn't tell whether they were trying to hug him or crush him, and he wasn't sure which would be worse. Naruto continued to look on with a mixture of confusion and sick fascination evident on his face.

"Get the hell out of my house – all of you. Before I call the police!" Tsure got off him immediately at the all too usual threat, but Sasame decided to give Sasuke a kiss on the cheek before retreating from me.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun," she said with a wink before leaving. The other two girls followed, ready to beat her for kissing 'their' Sasuke. Naruto then stood up from the bed and shrugged his backpack on his shoulder before walking out the bedroom door, whistling.

"Not you," he clarified, his teeth clenched. "We still have work to do."

"Why don't you just do some research on this Hamlet Alexanderson guy, and send it to me?" Naruto suggested. "I should get going anyway."

"Why don't _you_ just sit your ass down and actually pull your own weight?" Sasuke asked, anger evident in his tone of voice. Grumbling, Naruto placed his backpack on the ground and returned to his position on Sasuke's bed.

"So what was with all those girls?" Naruto asked. Sasuke sighed. Yeah, he figured Naruto would have a few questions. Damn Itachi, letting fangirls in. You'd think he'd have learned his lesson a while ago.

"It's become too common an occurrence," Sasuke muttered, his mind going back to the thoughts he had earlier of getting someone to pretend to be his boyfriend. Somehow, Itachi's words from earlier came back to him. _I know you're in a rush to get your boyfriend all to yourself_. He actually insinuated that Sasuke would have the lack of taste to date Naruto. He looked at the blond on his bed, and he immediately thought of what would happen if he had Naruto pretend to be his boyfriend. He caught himself staring and immediately tried to wipe his mind clear of all disturbing thoughts. "Anyway, we'd better get back to work."

"You do that," Naruto said, yawning. ' _Oh god, I might just kill him,_ ' Sasuke thought _. 'Calm down, Sasuke. If he dies, you'll probably get a bad grade on the project. Plus, I'd hate to go to prison. I'd look awful in those orange jumpsuits.'_ He studied Naruto's attire for a second and realized how ironic that would be before he sat back down at the chair at his desk.

Besides, trying to find a place to bury the body would be too bothersome.

They sat doing research on Alexander Hamilton for what seemed like an excruciating amount of time. At first, 'research' involved Sasuke looking things up on his computer while Naruto 'rested his eyes.' Sasuke then tossed his textbook at Naruto's napping form and ordered him to find some information and cite it. Even though he was pulling his weight by the end of the evening, he still had to ask the definition of any word with more than five syllables. Sometimes his stupidity amazed Sasuke.

"Sasuke, what does fun-da-men-ta-li-sm mean?" he asked, sounding out the word like a fourth grader.

"Just shut up and used context clues, you moron," he told him.

"Who are you calling moron, you asshole?" he yelled back.

"Shut up," Sasuke said, rubbing his temples for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. "Why do you always feel the need to be so fucking loud?"

"Why do _you_ always feel the need to be so quiet?" Naruto challenged.

"Because no one's ever bothered by someone who's too quiet," Sasuke explained, a triumphant smirk appearing after realizing that the blond had no comeback. Suddenly, Sasuke was broken from his thoughts when Itachi opened the door to his room.

"It's time for dinner," his brother said. "Naruto should stay here. There's a pretty bad storm going on." Sasuke hadn't noticed, but all he had to do was look out the window to see a torrential downpour. As if solidifying the upcoming decision, a loud clap of thunder rang out in the heavens. "I already told the cook to prepare a third dinner." He turned to Naruto. "Do you need to call your parents?"

"No," Naruto said quickly. "They won't mind."

They all walked down to the dining room and sat at the large table. It was definitely long enough to fit about twenty people with one seat at each end of the table. Usually, Sasuke sat on one and Itachi at the other, keeping much distance between them. But when they had someone else over, they would all sit close to each other like civilized people.

The cook came out with a large tray, three metallic trays on it. He placed one in front of each person at the table and removed the lids, revealing chicken parmesan. The three of them began to eat in silence until Itachi decided to open his mouth and become the asshole he was earlier.

"So, I noticed your bedroom was closed earlier, Sasuke," Itachi commented, pausing to take a sip of his water. "Were you and your boyfr…erm…I'm sorry, _Naruto_ …at least using protection?" As soon as the words left his mouth, Naruto spit out the drink of water he'd just taken, and it ended up all over Itachi. Sasuke didn't feel bad for him – that's what you get for being a smug asshole. It served him right!

"Halloween," Sasuke reminded his brother, and from that moment on, the meal was conducted in complete silence. After about ten minutes, Itachi finished his food and excused himself from the table, leaving Sasuke and Naruto alone. Naruto, who seemed to have been thinking about it more, finally spoke up.

"So you really _don't_ like all this attention," he said, almost as if he didn't believe it. "You have hundreds of girls lined up willing to fuck you whenever. And you don't take advantage of it or anything. You're such a _prude._ "

"I'm not a prude," Sasuke said with a scoff. "I'm just not interested in such shallow, fanatical demons. I know it might seem like heaven to someone who could never get a girl, but for someone who can have anyone he wants, it's pretty annoying."

"You're a real asshole, you know," Naruto told Sasuke. "You're just a big, egotistical jerk! If they were as annoying as you think they are, you'd do something about it."

"Believe me, I've tried," Sasuke said, not particularly wanting to continue this conversation.

Suddenly, the thoughts from earlier came back. The solution to all this fangirl nonsense was to simply get a boyfriend and come out. Of course, since he wasn't interested in anyone, he would just have to pretend to date someone.

" _Of course you can get him to do work,"_ Neji's words from earlier came back to him _. "Just promise him that you'll put in a good word with Sakura if he does his assignment and he'll do it. You can have him wrapped around your finger and make him do anything. He'd probably do the entire assignment himself."_

" _Were you and your boyfr…erm…I'm sorry,_ Naruto _…at least using protection?"_ Itachi's voice joined Neji's.

" _He_ is _pretty hot, I guess,"_ Sakura's voice joined the others _. "There's no doubt about that, right, Sasuke?"_

No, this was ridiculous. Even if Naruto would agree to this, why would Sasuke want to be associated with someone so annoying? He looked over at Naruto, who was currently wiping sauce off his mouth with his sleeve. As if being annoying wasn't bad enough, Naruto was just simply _gross_.

Although, that could be a good thing, right? Naruto was such the opposite from what Sasuke would look for in a potential boyfriend that any sort of arrangement would be purely business, with no feelings involved. All he'd have to do is offer a date or two with Sakura, offer to complete the project on his own, maybe offer to help Naruto with his homework or something, and Naruto couldn't _not_ accept, right? Why was he even thinking about this?

Sasuke looked out the window and noticed that the rain had cleared up since they started the meal. It wasn't ideal weather, but Naruto could drive home safely now.

"Really?" Naruto asked, a large dose of doubt evident in his voice. Sasuke forgot what Naruto was even talking about? "What brilliant plan did the Uchiha protégé come up with?" Oh right, the fangirls.

"Well, the biggest obstacle is that they lack any sort of intelligence," Sasuke said, wondering how to approach this whole idea. Any straight guy would immediately balk at this, and of all the things Naruto was, gay was definitely not one of them. "I'm sure you can relate to that." Naruto glared at the Uchiha, but he shrugged it off. It wasn't like he could actually intimidate him with that.

"The feasible idea would be to find someone to pretend to date me," Sasuke continued, deciding to tell the whole idea and tell it true. After all, Naruto would be more likely to accept if he knew that Sasuke didn't _want_ this, he was just forced into it. "Of course, there are a few problems with that. There are very few girls who don't piss me off, and any sort of arrangement would involve daily threats from my legions of fan girls. The only real solution to that would be if I found someone who would intimidate the fan girls into leaving them alone." Sasuke refused to add a gender-specific pronoun, and hoped that Naruto wouldn't pick up on that.

"So…" Naruto said, urging Sasuke to continue.

"So," continued Sasuke, taking a deep breath, "there are very few ways to find someone who would intimidate the fan girls. The only thing that I could _possibly_ think of was to try and find a _guy_ to pretend to date me." He made sure to make the idea of following through with this plan sound abhorrent. If there was one thing Sasuke was good at, it was manipulation.

"Why would you want to date a guy?" Naruto asked, his face scrunching up in disgust before widening his eyes. "Uh…you know, not like there's a problem with that. You know…Born This Way, gay pride and all that. You know, if you're into that stuff that's fine too, I guess." He began rubbing the back of his neck nervously as he tried to take back his words.

"I didn't say I was gay," Sasuke pointed out, not wanting to scare Naruto off from this plan. Wait a second…why would that matter? Even if Naruto refused to do this, there were tons of guys out there who would do this. Oh well, in for a dime, in for a dollar. "But I have no interest in people at all – male or female. If I had to choose one to spend time with for appearances, I'd prefer a guy who I could relate to rather than a girl who would let it all go to their head."

"I guess that's true," Naruto said awkwardly, glancing at the door ever-so-slightly. He probably just said that to humor me. Sasuke could still see he was trying to wrap his mind about why a presumably straight guy would want to pretend to date a guy. "Well, if we're done here, I'm gonna go," Naruto said, standing up with his plate to bring it to the kitchen. He began walking there, and Sasuke stood up.

"Wait," he ordered.

"What?" Naruto asked in an impatient tone of voice. Sasuke clenched his fist, not believing what he was about to do.

"I need to put my plan into motion immediately," he confessed. "These fangirls are really becoming too much."

"What plan?" Naruto asked. "Finding some poor, stupid sap to pretend to be your boyfriend? 'Cause that sounds like an awful plan."

"What would you say if I told you I could get you a date with Sakura?" Sasuke asked, ignoring his statement. His eyes widened before narrowing in suspicion. Suddenly, they widened again, realization dawning upon his features.

"Oh no," Naruto said, shaking his head. "I know where you're going with this, and I'm going to tell you right now that there's no way I will sacrifice my reputation and my dignity for a date with anyone." Sasuke clenched his fists. Damn, he was sure that would work.

"What if I did the rest of this assignment for you?" Sasuke asked, which seemed to shock Naruto too. "We both know you need a good grade on this, and I can guarantee you an A. All you have to do is pretend to date me in school – no kissing, no touching, just putting on a good show. And in the end, you'll get a great grade on the project _and_ a date with Sakura."

Naruto narrowed his eyes once more in suspicion before he seemed to think about Sasuke's offer. The raven could tell that even that great deal he laid out for the blond wasn't sealing the deal easily, and Sasuke couldn't blame him. Nevertheless, he needed a fake boyfriend _now_ , or he might as well invite his fan club to live in his house. He shuddered at the thought.

"Two dates with Sakura," Sasuke said, hoping the added bonus of a second date with her would seal the deal. This time, he definitely seemed more inclined to accept, but there was a lot of hesitation still. Sasuke couldn't really do anything else. He could always offer a third date, but he was pretty sure Sakura wouldn't go on _three_ …she'd end up killing him for even offering. Finally, Naruto sighed.

"Look, I know you're a little upset about all these fangirls," he conceded, "but there is no way in hell that I'm gonna do this."

"Why don't you think about it when you're home?" Sasuke asked, hoping that some thought would lead him to the proper conclusion. "You can answer me tonight over AIM. Just think it over, alright?"

"This is so fucked up," Naruto exclaimed before composing himself slightly. "Fine, I'll go home and think about it, but if I say no, you have to promise to accept my decision."

"Why wouldn't I?" Sasuke asked with a sickeningly sweet smile. Since he didn't explicitly say 'yes', he wouldn't be bound to anything. Because let's face it: this was the closest hope he had at this plan going through. He couldn't just let it slip through his fingers so easily.

He would do anything to get rid of these annoying girls, and if that included pretending to date that idiot, then he'd do it.

 


	2. Nothing More

 

The next morning didn't really start off all that pleasant, although it might just be the fact that Sasuke wasn't not a morning person. Very few mornings actually start off pleasantly. He nearly broke his alarm clock in anger when it woke him from his slumber, and he nearly rolled back over to go to sleep. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that he had to go into school today. Today was the day that he came out of the closet and got rid of the fan girls once and for all. Hopefully.

He had IM'd with Naruto last night, and he'd practically agreed that he'd follow along with this. Sasuke told him where they were going to meet before school, and he'd already started mentally preparing to come out of the closet to Neji, Hinata and Tenten, not to mention Kakashi and the rest of school.

Itachi, of course, dampened his mood a bit. At breakfast this morning, he asked when Sasuke's boy toy would be dropping by the mansion again, and then he started trying to singsong 'Sasuke and Naruto, sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G', but Sasuke just ignored him. Eventually, he'd give up on it. It was then that Sasuke decided to leave for school, and due to a lack of the usual traffic, it took him half the time to get to the school that it usually took.

He slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way towards the building to pick up Naruto. He passed a few girls who tried to talk to him and flirt with him, but he just shut them down. After all, he had to pick up Naruto. He would never get used to this. He walked to the left side of the building while everyone was filing into the school, his bad mood starting to give way to a good mood. If everything went right, then he'd be free of the fan girls forever after this! That thought in and of itself was almost enough to make him smile.

He stood where he was supposed to meet Naruto and saw that no one was there. Was he even showing up? They did agree on 7:30 and it was already 7:34. Did Naruto decide last minute to stand Sasuke up and call off their deal? That would be completely unacceptable. There was no way in hell that Sasuke would let such an utter moron off the hook like that. In fact, just to prove a point that no one screws with an Uchiha, he might just have to get him back for this. As Sasuke mentally continued the rant of things he'd do to get even, he didn't notice someone approach from behind me.

"Hello?" came the voice, shaking Sasuke from the thoughts he had. "Sasuke?" Said boy turned around, expecting to see the blond hair that belonged to his now fake boyfriend, surprised when his eyes fell upon the wrong blond. He recognized her from a few of his classes. She wasn't one of the fangirls, but she used to have a huge crush on Sasuke in middle school. In fact, back then, she and Sakura were the two most prominent fan girls, always arguing over who got to sit next to Sasuke and whatnot.

"What do you want?" Sasuke asked shortly, not wanting to get involved in anything else. He already had to plot Naruto's death; he didn't need a former fangirl distracting me.

"I'm here to be your girlfriend," she grumbled, surprising the Uchiha. He looked up with a questioning glance at her. What the hell was she talking about? His look must have conveyed his question, as she answered it quickly. "Naruto told me you needed someone to pretend to be your girlfriend for a little bit to get your fangirls off your back, and he said he'd pay me $50 to do it."

That fucking idiot. Didn't he understand that Sasuke needed the fake girlfriend to be A BOY? That was the only reason he asked him in the first place. But that concept must have gone over his head. If Sasuke wanted to have a fake girlfriend, he could have asked Sakura.

"No," Sasuke said. "I don't need a fake _girl_ friend. All that would do is rile the fangirls up, and it would probably put you into an early grave." She snorted at this, which kind of pissed Sasuke off. Who the hell did she think she was anyway?

"You think I'm scared of them?" the blonde girl – Sasuke didn't remember her name – asked, her face sporting an entertained look. "Please, I could chew them up and spit them out. There's no need for _Naruto_ to pretend to be your boyfriend when I can just do it for him and spare him his reputation. You see – everyone's happy. I get my money, he gets his rep, and you get rid of those harpies."

"Why do you care about Naruto's reputation?" Sasuke asked, impatience getting the best of him. It's not like what she said didn't make sense, but the fact that she was a fangirl of Sasuke's at one point didn't really make him excited about this prospect.

"He _is_ my brother," the girl said with a shrug. That's odd – Sasuke didn't know Naruto had a sister in their grade. They didn't look that much like each other at all. Even the blonde hair was much more yellow on Naruto's head, while on hers, it seemed more like a pale silver. He was also much tanner than she was, and his face looked entirely different. Sasuke never would have guessed. "Besides, I owe him for something."

"I don't have the patience for this," Sasuke said as he sighed. "I don't remember your name, but I do remember that you stalked me for, like, four years. I don't exactly trust you to keep your hands off." Was he being an asshole? Yes. Did he care? No.

"Well, first off, the name's Ino," the girl, Ino, said. "Second off, I really don't care if you trust me. It's not like I _want_ to do this, but $50 will get me the new Rihanna album, so I'm all for it." ' _Really_?' thought Sasuke. ' _Did she just imply that a Rihanna CD is more important than me? I didn't know whether to be angry or relieved_.' He just settled for indifferent.

"Well then, I guess I won't be needing your services anymore," Sasuke said with a shrug as he started to walk around towards the front of the school. "I didn't ask for a fake _girl_ friend for a reason." He didn't stay back long enough to hear or see her reaction, instead choosing to return to his previous thoughts of how to kill Naruto. It had to be slow and painful, definitely.

As he walked into his English class a few minutes later, he sent a glare towards the sunshine blond who was sitting in the first row, smiling and laughing with his friends. There were a bunch of people in that group – a kid named Kiba who was a meathead with a brain that rivaled the size of a dog's, a kid named Choji who could eclipse the sun if he was in orbit, a kid named Sai who had the social skills of a dead turkey, and a kid named Lee who had more energy in his pinky than Sasuke could ever muster up, even if he drank Red Bull for a week straight. There was also Kiba, who was the only person who could make Naruto seem intelligent. The blond was too busy with his friends, however, to notice the glare Sasuke sent him as he went to sit with Sakura, Hinata, Gaara, Neji and Tenten. As Sasuke sat down, the bell rang, and the teacher, Kurenai Yuhi, came into the room.

"Okay class," she said. "Sit down and take out last night's homework." Business as usual. She went around the room, collecting the homework one person at a time. Like always, Naruto grinned, scratching his cheek, when Kurenai-sensei came by and he didn't have homework done. Hn, what a moron.

After homework was collected, she had the students get into groups of two to discuss the book they were currently reading, _Tales of a Gutsy Ninja_. The book was actually written by Jiraya, from the time in his life when he was less of a pervert and before he'd decided to teach. It actually wasn't a bad book, except for the fact that it had a main character named…you guessed it…Naruto.

Normally, Sasuke would pair up with Gaara, Neji with Tenten, and Sakura with Hinata. Everyone else in the class would pair up in their own circle of friends as well, the groups never changing at all. But today, Sasuke decided he had to confront Naruto. When everyone got up to get partners, he headed straight towards the blond, who was standing next to Kiba.

"Naruto, you're my partner," Sasuke said with an air of finality in his voice. He wasn't in the mood for arguing, especially with Naruto.

"Get lost, Uchiha," Kiba said with a scowl. "Naruto and I are already partners." Sasuke glared at the brunet before grabbing Naruto's arm and pulling him with back to Sasuke's seat. At first the blond struggled, but Sasuke wouldn't let him escape. Naruto turned back apologetically at Kiba, who strode off. In the end, he paired up with Gaara, who Sasuke had left without a partner of his own.

"So, what did you think about Naruto defeating Zabuza?" Naruto asked, trying to talk about the book and get down to business. Sasuke scowled; did he really think he did that just to talk about the fucking book?

"Personally, I think Naruto is a stupid little punk who lies to people," Sasuke said, sending him a pointed look that either he ignored or didn't understand the importance of.

"What?" he exclaimed "Naruto never lies! He's a strong, brave ninja who doesn't let anything get in his way of becoming Hokage!" Was he serious here? How long was he going to go on with this? Choosing not to play his game, Sasuke intensified his glare before responding.

"I'm talking about the _other_ Naruto," he said, sending Naruto a pointed look. Suddenly, the blonde's face changed to an expression of acceptance. It's like he knew they were going to have to talk about his little stunt with Ino eventually, but he was hoping to delay it. But it seemed he finally resigned himself to this conversation.

"Oh," he said. "This is about Ino, isn't it?" he guessed.

"No shit, Sherlock," Sasuke said sarcastically. "If you didn't want to do this, you could have just told me no instead of _lying_."

"I didn't _lie_ ," Naruto said, emphasizing the last word. "I was resigned to having to do it, but then I talked with Ino, and we came up with a better plan that made everyone happy. I did you a favor. So when are you two going public?" he asked with a smirk.

"We're not," Sasuke said, a smirk forming on is face. "I'm going to get my fake boyfriend and show you not to screw with me in one shot." The plan had already begun to form in his mind. If there was no way that Naruto would willingly agree to pretend to be Sasuke's boyfriend because of his reputation, then the solution would be to ruin Naruto's reputation to the point where going out with Sasuke would improve it. But how could he achieve that? He'd need to make the school's student body _want_ the two of them to date in order to do that, and he was pretty sure that wouldn't happen.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked, his voice low as he narrowed his eyes. At least Sasuke's vague threat seemed to catch his attention. Maybe he wasn't as stupid as Sasuke thought he was. The big question was how Sasuke would get the school to want them together.

Well, people love a good romance. If Sasuke could paint a picture that he and Naruto were some epic romance, he could probably get people on his side. After all, the fan girls were still girls, and girls loved sappy romances. And then the idea came to the Uchiha.

"You'll see soon enough," he said with a smirk. Naruto looked like he was going to question Sasuke further, but before he had the opportunity, Kurenai had them regroup as a class to discuss the novel, leaving the blond wondering about Sasuke's form of revenge.

After class ended, Sasuke was hounded in the halls by Sakura, who wanted to know why he chose to partner with Naruto during class. He had a small mental battle with himself before continuing. If he was to go through with this plan, he'd have to lie to Sakura and Gaara, which he didn't want to do. But if he was to _not_ go through with the plan, he'd have to find another solution to the fangirls and find another way to punish Naruto. So, in the end, Sasuke's needs outweighed the guilt of lying.

"He kissed me last night," Sasuke lied, noting the shocked look on Sakura's face. Even Gaara, who had been walking next to her, couldn't contain his shock. "When we went to my house to work on the project, we just sort of…connected." She beamed in happiness for me, which made Sasuke feel a little guilty for lying, while Gaara was silent. The squeal Sakura let out was virtually inhuman, and Sasuke was pretty certain that only certain species of dolphins were able to fully hear it.

"When are you going to tell everyone that you two are going out?" Sakura asked, excitement playing on her features. "This is so exciting. I thought he liked you…he was always looking at our table during lunch." Sasuke didn't need to tell her that those longing looks were directed at her, not him. "There are just some things a girl can sense."

Sasuke knew that he would end up having to tell Neji about this next period, Phsyics, since they were lab partners. He'd probably wondered why Sasuke partnered with Naruto as well, and he'd learn about this all at lunch anyway. It was best to do this now and get it over with.

Sasuke shuffled into his seat next to Neji and took out his physics notebook. As Genma entered, Neji turned to Sasuke with a look of confusion on his face. Tenten sat down with Hinata at the lab table in front of the pair, and they both turned with questioning looks to hear Sasuke's answer to the question they all knew Neji was about to ask. Well, this was it. It was the moment of truth. After this, there was no turning back.

"So what's up with you and Naruto?" he asked. Sasuke breathed in deeply. ' _C'mon, you can do it, Sasuke. If he reacts badly, you can just say you were pretending to be gay to get the fangirls off your backs.'_

"Naruto and I are together," he said finally. "I'm gay."

Now, there are a few reactions you expect when you come out of the closet to someone. Anger, disgust, confusion, a mixture. Heck, it might just be pure happiness. But there were only so many responses and reactions that Sasuke was expecting, and what actually happened was not any of them.

"It's about time," Tenten muttered from the seat in front of me. She sounded annoyed.

"Yeah, well…wait, wait?" Sasuke asked. What did she mean, 'it's about time'? Did she…did she know? Sensing Sasuke's confusion, Neji decided to answer to spare Tenten.

"Tenten and I had a bet on when you'd finally come out," Neji explained, sounding slightly abashed. "She said it would be before the end of last school year, but I said it would be at least after the beginning of senior year." As if Sasuke's confession didn't matter at all, he turned to his girlfriend and opened his hand so his palm faced the ceiling. "Pay up."

Muttering, Tenten pulled out two twenties and put them in Neji's hand, the Hyuga's hand closing around the money. Why he needed more money was beyond Sasuke, since his family was even richer than the Uchihas!

Wait a second…

"You knew?" Sasuke asked Neji, shocked. Was it that obvious? Did he stare at guys or something? Sasuke doubted it. So what was it? Was he just so flamboyant that it was impossible to ignore?

"Duh," Tenten said. "Why else would you remain single so long? You have so many fangirls, that any straight guy would have at least fooled around with most of them, even if he didn't actually get a girlfriend out of it."

"If I had _half_ as many fangirls as you, I would have a different bed warmer every night," Neji said simply, earning a smack from his girlfriend. "If I didn't have Tenten, of course," he added, just a little bit too late.

"Hinata was the first to pick up on it," Tenten said. Sasuke looked over to the blushing Hyuga, who didn't meet his eye. Dammit! Sasuke always prided himself on his cool mask of steely indifference. And now, he finds out people can see right through it? If he didn't have such a powerful cool mask of steely indifference, he'd have pouted right then.

After the enlightening conversation, physics class went by rather quickly, and before he knew it, it was time for lunch, which meant it was time for Sasuke to put his master plan into full effect. By the end of the day, Naruto would be humiliated (and possibly beaten up by a few of Sasuke's more powerful fangirls), and Ssauke would be free. Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, he'll be free at last!

After he got his turkey and cheese sandwich from the cafeteria lady, Sasuke got his napkins and smirked before walking to the area where all the tables were. He sent one glance towards his usual table and then made the decision to stride over to Naruto's table instead. After all, he needed to keep appearances up, didn't he?

"What are you doing here?" Naruto asked as Sasuke dropped his tray right next to him and sat down. He smirked inwardly, not wanting to actually show the wrong emotion and mess this plan up. For this plan to work, Sasuke would have to channel his inner-actor to get this to work. He'd have to deliver an Oscar-worthy performance.

"What?" Sasuke asked innocently, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not allowed to sit next to my boyfriend?" Sasuke couldn't tell whether the red flush on Naruto's face was from embarrassment, or anger, or both, but Sasuke knew that he liked it.

"What are you talking about?" Kiba asked, his mouth half full with his food. Sasuke knew the scene that was about the unfold would be entertaining, so he decided to commit every word to memory. He wanted to be able to look back on this when he's sixty and recall how he destroyed Naruto.

"He didn't tell you?" Sasuke asked, earning a confused look from Sai and Lee. "Naruto and I are together." Before Naruto knew what was happening, Sasuke reached his hand out and covered the blonde's, conveying as much affection as possible. Naruto's eyes widened in shock, and Kiba looked confused. Glancing from Naruto to me, his eyes started to widen, beginning to believe me.

"He's lying," Naruto said, his voice finally starting to work for him again. He pulled his hand back like he was touching hot coals. He must have been too shell shocked to respond at first. Suddenly, Sasuke furrowed his brow, trying to convey confusion to the witnesses of this exchange, which now included Ino and Choji as well.

"W-What?" Sasuke asked, hoping that he wasn't being _too_ out of character by stuttering. He had to sound sad and disappointed, or else it would be too obvious that he was fucking with him, but he couldn't overact, either. Sasuke saw out of the corner of his eye that Ino was starting to narrow her eyes. Since she knew about Sasuke's proposal to Naruto last night, Sasuke obviously wasn't fooling her. Oh well, he really only had to convince the student body. "So that kiss last night meant nothing?" Sasuke quickly replaced his look of sadness with a look of stony anger. That's what he'd do if this was real, right? He couldn't actually stay looking like a pathetically love-stricken girl.

"YOU KISSED SASUKE!" Kiba yelled all too loudly. Damn, it was really hard to not smirk at his plan going so well. Kiba's voice had now attracted the attention of the entire cafeteria, as everyone looked at the table Sasuke was now sitting at with interest. Naruto's face grew redder, this time definitely from embarrassment. This couldn't be going more perfectly if Sasuke was able to write their responses himself.

"No, I didn't," Naruto whispered harshly. He looked around and must have noticed that they were the center of attention for all the students, waiting for the drama to unfold. And Sasuke couldn't just disappoint them, could he? He was able to feel the intensity of glares directed at the blond from the fangirl table behind him. "Ino, will you help me out?"

Ino seemed to understand the situation much more quickly than Naruto had, because her eyes narrowed at Sasuke. If he wasn't an Uchiha, he might have flinched at it. Maybe.

"You're a real asshole, you know that?" she asked. ' _Alright, Sasuke this is it. It's time to deliver the final blow to Naruto's sorry reputation and the hopes of those insane fangirls_.' He pushed his seat away and picked his tray up.

"I may be an asshole," Sasuke said, projecting his voice so that the silent student body could hear every word he said perfectly. "But at least I don't _kiss_ people and pretend it didn't happen." Sasuke felt the stares of hundreds of kids on him, and decided it was time to continue. He wanted to give the rest of the students enough time to absorb this, but not enough time to question it. "I can't believe I actually liked you. Well, even I can tell when I'm not wanted." Sasuke debated letting a single tear fall to accentuate his point, but he decided he'd already done enough to ruin Naruto.

As soon as he got into the hallway, though, he almost really did start to cry…from laughter. It went so much better than he'd anticipated. It turned his foul mood from this morning into a cheerful one. He felt like he could conquer the world! It was exhilarating to ruin someone. Now, Naruto could choose to either be hated as the insensitive asshole who broke Sasuke's heart, or he'd have to accept Sasuke's offer. And either way, the rest of the student body would think he was gay – it was so perfect!

It didn't take Naruto thirty seconds to storm out of the cafeteria after the Uchiha. Not that they didn't have an audience, Sasuke decided it was time to let is smirk show itself. Naruto glared at him and clenched his fists in anger.

"What the fuck was that, you bastard?" he exclaimed. "What are you trying to pull?"

"Well, as of now, you are the most hated kid in Konoha High," Sasuke said with a smirk. "You 'broke the heart' of the Golden Boy. Now, you'll be lucky to get through the rest of the day without getting beaten up by my fangirls. And now, since everyone thinks I'm not-so-secretly pining for you, they'll leave me alone. I just killed two birds with one stone. I bet you wished you'd met me this morning, don't you?" He was actually shaking with anger, but it didn't scare Sasuke. If anything, it made his smirk grow.

"You asshole," Naruto growled. "Just because I didn't want to go along with some scheme that had a slight chance of helping you at my expense doesn't give you the right to ruin my life!" Sasuke could feel a slight pang of guilt at that, knowing that if the shoe was on the other foot, he would hate himself. And then there was the whole thought that Sasuke humiliated Naruto just like Itachi liked to humiliate Sasuke, which sent shivers down Sasuke's spine.

"I think if you want to salvage your reputation, you should rethink my offer," Sasuke said, deciding to be generous. "Right now, everyone thinks you're an asshole who's confused about his sexuality. If you decide to go through with the plan that I'd already come up with, you can go from a bi-curious asshole to a gay sweetheart." His glare intensified at Sasuke's suggestion.

"I'm not gay," Naruto insisted. "And I certainly won't do you any favors," he spat.

"Well, it wouldn't really be a favor," Sasuke replied with a shrug. "I've done what I wanted to do. This is my offer to help you salvage what's left of your reputation." His glared didn't let up and Sasuke scoffed. "I'll give you to the end of the day to rethink my offer. Good luck salvaging your reputation and preventing those rabid fangirls from tearing your balls off." Sasuke turned to walk away, but Naruto got in front of him, blocking the way.

"You really are the biggest asshole on earth!" he shouted at Sasuke.

"And you're the biggest dumbass on earth," the raven retorted. Naruto glared at Sasuke for a little longer, probably hoping that the Uchiha would eventually crack and return to the cafeteria to undo the damage he caused. But after the little staring contest Naruto had initiated, he huffed and walked off in the other direction while Sasuke walked to history class.

Too bad for him that they had history next, because they were still partners for the history project. And as if his luck wasn't bad enough this morning, they had to work together all afternoon. Sasuke knew there were whispers about Naruto from some of the other groups, and Naruto barely spoke a word to him. That was fine, because he normally never shut up…it was nice to have a small break from it. Twice during the period, Karin punched him while she walked by to sharpen her pencil. It was like Sasuke's fangirls had become his own personal army!

After history, they had psychology class, where Kakashi was late…as usual. Sasuke retold the sad story about how he'd always had a crush on Naruto and how Naruto had kissed him last night and admitted he returned the feelings, only to reject Sasuke today at lunch. Since the class was small and intimate, Kakashi decided it was okay to have story time instead of a lesson. Naruto wasn't there, of course, because he got punched in the nose by Sasame in the hallway and was at the nurse. But still, through Sasuke's retelling, one person remained totally unconvinced.

"What's going on?" Neji asked Sasuke when the two were alone. "I know you're gay and all, but I also know that Naruto hasn't even been a blimp on your radar until yesterday. Besides, you're not the type to get all upset over a rejection. Gaara and I spoke about it, and we agreed that something's fishy." Well, Sasuke wasn't exactly surprised that he hadn't fooled Neji and Gaara. Gaara was always too observant for his own good, and Neji was just as smart.

"You got me," Sasuke said, holding his hands up in mock surrender as he smirked. "Let's just say that it's a part of my plan to get rid of the fan girls…for good."

"So far it seems to be working," the Hyuga commented, noticing that most of the fangirls were focusing more on Naruto than on Sasuke. "I'm glad to finally have a conversation with you without hearing squeals of 'Sasuke-kun' constantly."

"Tell me about it," Sasuke said as the blond entered the room, a tissue held to his nose to keep it from bleeding. He sat down at his usual seat and was swarmed by Tsure and Karin, who were yelling at him about something (three guesses as to what). Naruto raised his arms to shield himself from getting hit when Neji continued.

"So, why Naruto Uzumaki of all people?" he asked Sasuke as he followed his gaze. "Does my little Sasuke-kun have a crush?" he asked with a smirk. Sasuke scoffed, the remark not even deserving a glare.

"Please," he said. "I _do_ have standards."

Finally, with five minutes left of the period, Kakashi finally decided to hand out a sheet detailing a project. And of course it was a project that they'd work on in partners. And of course, it was Kakashi who chose the partners. He claimed he chose the partners last night before any of this happened, but Naruto didn't exactly believe him when he and Sasuke were paired together for their second project together. Sasuke wasn't particularly happy at that either, but at least spending more time with Naruto would give more credence to the rumors.

Usually, Kakashi pissed Sasuke off when he interfered. Technically, he was Sasuke's guardian, and he's the closest thing Sasuke had to a father since he was six, but he still pissed the Ucihha off. He always meddled in things that weren't his business, and it usually ended up badly for him. But this time, Sasuke wasn't mad at all. In fact, one could say it was fate that he paired him with Naruto again. After all, he loved being able to rub Naruto's face in his plan for another few minutes.

Too soon, however, the class was over, and it was time for the last period of the day: health with the perverted Jiraya Senin. And knowing that the rumors about Naruto and himself had spread throughout the school already, Sasuke smirked, knowing that Jiraya would probably make some perverted remark about Naruto during the class. It was really all too perfect.

As they shuffled in, Jiraya was putting away a few copies of Hustler magazine into his desk, and asked his usual question. "Welcome back, class. Did anyone have sex last night?" Instead of the usual groans from the other students in the class, there were awkward looks sent towards Naruto and Sasuke, and the latter smirked inwardly at the outburst Naruto made upon realizing this.

"I did _not_ have sex with that bastard last night!" he exclaimed rather loudly. It took all Sasuke's effort not to just burst out laughing. Instead, he scowled, pretending to be irritated by Naruto's attitude. Sasuke looked at Jiraya, and saw he had an amused expression on his face.

"Aw, and you even have an adorable pet name for him," Jiraya said, ruffling Naruto's hair. "Now I know why you didn't want to see pictures of naked girls in class yesterday, huh?" Naruto flushed in embarrassment and anger, beginning to sputter. "It's okay," Jiraya continued. "Today we will be reading a book instead."

"A book?" Sakura asked from her seat behind me. This was unusual. It seemed everyone in the classroom was confused as to the new direction this class would take.

"Yes, a book," Jiraya said to the pinkette behind me. "It's a written work or composition that has been published. You can generally find them in libraries and book stores, although now you can get them on e-readers as well."

"I know what a book is," Sakura huffed before muttering "pervert" under her breath.

"This book is called Icha Icha Paradise, and it was written by yours truly," the teacher said with a stupid grin. Hm, he usually only grinned like that when he watched porn. What kind of book was it? As he handed out the books, Sasuke got his answer, staring at the cover of the book. So this is why he chose to stop looking at pictures of naked girls and start reading. It was an erotic novel! Sasuke didn't know why he was surprised. If anyone wouldn't surprise him by writing a smutty book, it would be Jiraya.

"What do you suggest for people like Naruto and I who don't…appreciate…the content," Sasuke asked, inwardly applauding at the way he was able to throw more attention at the blonde's sexuality. A few people sniggered, but Jiraya's eyes widened.

"Are you saying that you two _did_ have sex?" he asked, slightly surprised. "I'm going to assume that you topped, Sasuke." Sasuke smirked at this, mentally counting down the seconds until Nrauto's outburst. 3…2…1…

"WE DID NOT FUCKING HAVE SEX!" Naruto yelled from across the room. He threw his book towards the front, hitting Jiraya in the head with it.

"No, we didn't," Sasuke agreed calmly. "You see, Mr. Senin, Naruto's so confused about his sexual orientation that he decided to use me to experiment, giving no regards towards my feelings on the matter." People seemed a little shocked that Ssauke spoke. That might be the most he'd spoken in that class all semester. Was he being too out of character?

"Experimentation," Jiraya said to himself while rubbing his chin, thinking about what Sasuke had just said. "Class, I think I have another idea for a lesson plan today. Naruto, will you stand up and come to the front of the class?"

"W-What?" Naruto asked, his eyes wide. ' _What did I just get him into_?' Sasuke smirked slightly and leaned back, deciding to enjoy whatever show was about to play out in front of him.

"I asked you to come up here," Jiraya repeated, tapping his foot in impatience. "Are you gay _and_ deaf?"

"I'm not gay," Naruto muttered before standing up and walking to the front of the room. Sasuke couldn't believe that his plan to humiliate Naruto had worked so well. This is above and beyond what he'd expected. He patted himself on the back, mentally of course.

"I want you to look at a few of these pictures and tell me what you think," Jiraya sensei said. He first put up a diagram of the female reproductive system, and Naruto shrugged. He then put up a picture of a naked girl who…damn! Those things were, like, size GG! It's amazing those things weren't falling off! Naruto's eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped immediately upon seeing the picture, to which Jiraya chuckled. "You don't have to overcompensate," he said, patting the blonde's head. "None of us care that you're gay. You don't have to pretend anymore." The entire class snickered, and Sasuke would have joined in had he not had too much decorum. But yeah, he was enjoying this.

"I'm not gay," Naruto muttered again, glaring at the teacher. Then, Jiraya shocked everyone in the room by doing something that no one would ever expect him to do. He put up a picture of a naked _guy._ They didn't even think he had _diagrams_ of a guy, let alone _pictures_. Immediately, Naruto looked away in disgust, as did most of the guys in the class. Sasuke just sat there with a bored expression, not really caring. Sure, the guy was good looking, but thankfully, Sasuke didn't let hormones run his life.

Jiraya clicked off the projector and unplugged it before sending Naruto back to his seat. "Okay class, I'm now entirely sure of Naruto's sexual orientation." Naruto immediately hid his head in his hands on his desk as the teacher began to speak again. "He's definitely gay, but he's hidden so far in the closet that he's convinced himself he's straight." Sasuke nearly laughed right then and there at the red that had spread all the way to Naruto's ears, which were still visible while his head was hidden. Although a part of Sasuke was really entertained by all this, a part of him did feel bad, too. He heard a distinct pounding noise as Naruto beat his head against his desk.

"I offer extra credit to anyone who can get Naruto to admit he's gay, and even more extra credit to anyone who can successfully set him up with Sasuke," Jiraya said with a look of self-satisfaction on his face as Sasuke's jaw dropped and Naruto burst out.

"WHAT?" he exclaimed. For once, Sasuke had to really agree with him. What gave Jiraya the right to do that? All Naruto or Sasuke would have to do to get him fired would be go to the school board. What kind of school did he think this was?

"C'mon, Naruto," Sakura said from behind me. "Everyone knows Sasuke's hot! What's stopping you?"

"I'm not gay!" Naruto yelled for what must have been the twentieth time that day. Ignoring him, Sakura turned to me, rubbing the Uchiha's shoulder supportively.

"Don't worry, Sasuke," she said. "As soon as Naruto realizes who he is and comes out, he'll be ready to be with you. He only rejected you because he's still in denial and thinks he's straight." Sasuke wasn't sure whether to be amazed at Sakura's stupidity for falling for this, or to be happy that she was helping paint him as a victim. The more victimized Sasuke seemed, the more Naruto would be pushed into a corner.

"I guess you're right," Sasuke said to Sakura. He had one final thing to say, so he turned to Naruto. "But I won't wait for you forever, so hurry up."

* * *

Sasuke realized after he got home that he must have inherited Itachi's sadistic streak. To be honest…he was pretty harsh back there. Sure, Naruto sort of deserved it for lying to him, but at the same time, Sasuke couldn't help the gnawing feeling of guilt that was beginning to creep up on him again. Not only did Sasuke ruin Naruto's chance at finding a girl in high school, but he also made Naruto look like a complete asshole. As impressive as it was, it was also a little jarring when Sasuke realized just how much that could hurt him. It really _was_ something Itachi would do.

It was just like the previous day when Itachi insinuated that he and Naruto were together. Or like when Sasuke first invited Sakura over to the mansion and Itachi made her think that he invited over for a date. Or that time that he told Neji that Sasuke was too busy doing a voodoo ritual to hang out with him. Come to think of it, he was becoming just like Itachi.

That thought actually scared Sasuke a bit. He really hated Itachi because of how much he tried to torture him. Sasuke looked in the mirror on the back of his bedroom door, and saw that he physically resembled him too. It was like he was becoming his brother – evil and sadistic. Sure, neither of them were evil in the sense that they'd hurt or kill someone, but Sasuke just might have ruined Naruto's life. With the exception of his very close friends, no one who lived here would ever think of Naruto as more than a closeted homosexual.

Sasuke's train of thought was interrupted, ironically, when Itachi came into the room. "Your blond boy toy is downstairs," he said nonchalantly. "He wants to talk to you." Sasuke didn't really have the energy to scowl at his brother, as he was wondering why Naruto was here. But Sasuke actually felt like he wanted to see him. He had this insane urge to apologize. He rushed down the hallway, but slowed down before he reached the stairs…he didn't want to seem too eager to apologize.

"Naruto?" Sasuke asked when he saw the blond standing in the foyer. "What are you doing here?" Sasuke finished walking down the stairs when Naruto turned around to face him, glare in place.

"What the fuck was that all about!" he yelled, glaring at the raven. "I know I backed out of our fucked up deal, but what you did was uncalled for."

"You're right," Sasuke said after a couple of seconds, causing Naruto to gape at me. "I shouldn't have gone so far with making people think you're a confused, gay asshole who broke my heart."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed softly, somewhat confused at my apology. Hm, who knew there was more than one volume to his voice? "That was a little overkill. You could have just stopped at confused and gay and still gotten your point across." Wait, was that…a joke?

"I was just glad that coming out and pretending to have a huge ass crush on you was just what I needed to get the fangirls off my back," Sasuke said, wondering what Naruto would do now that Sasuke had admitted that he went to far.

"Yeah, and I'm sorry, by the way," Naruto said, the grin gone from his face. Sasuke furrowed his brow in confusion. Why would he be sorry?

"For what?" the Uchiha asked, confused. It's not like he really had anything to apologize for, right?

"Well, after you tell the truth tomorrow, you'll be glommed by fan girls again," Naruto said. Yeah, that's true…hold on…

"When did I ever say I was going to tell the truth?" Sasuke asked, causing him to gape.

"I-I thought you said you were sorry," he said. His eyes were growing wide, realizing that Sasuke had no intention to go back in time, or to undo this mess.

"I did," Sasuke confirmed. "But I never said I'd tell the truth. I still need to keep the fangirls off my back. I told you what you have to do if you really want to salvage this."

"No!" he immediately yelled, rejecting Sasuke's offer. Jeez, why'd he have to always be so loud? Where was the volume control that Sasuke had witnessed a few seconds ago?

"Listen, you can kill two birds with one stone," Sasuke suggested. "We pretend to date, which will keep the fangirls off my back, and then, I'll break up with you in a few weeks, and you can play the victim. The girls will glom onto you and you can have anyone you want. It's a win/win."

"No!" he repeated, his volume even louder.

"If you don't agree, I could always spend the night coming up with new and more creative ways to ruin your reputation," Sasuke offered with a shrug, prompting Naruto to narrow his eyes.

"You wouldn't dare," he said. In all honesty, Sasuke didn't relish going any further with this, but he would if he had to. His peace and sanity had to come before Naruto's high school reputation.

"Try me," Sasuke challenged, smirking at Naruto's glare. It's not like he really _could_ challenge Sasuke after what he pulled today. He'd have to take a pretty big gamble for that.

"Fine," he said, which actually surprised the Uchiha. Sasuke didn't actually expect Naruto to agree so soon. "But there are a few conditions." Oh, great…what now? "I still owe Ino $50 because she offered to be your girlfriend instead of me."

"That's pocket change," Sasuke said, dismissively waving his hands. He looked surprised at how quickly he conceded to that demand before continuing.

"You offered to do my project," he reminded the raven. "I still want you to do that, and do the one for psychology, too."

"I'm only doing the history one," Sasuke said, putting his foot down. "You can help with the psychology one." Naruto glared at him before finally accepting.

"Fine," he muttered. "But I also want those dates with Sakura when this is all over." Well, that could be a problem now that she thought Sasuke and Naruto were actually going to be together, but that didn't stop Sasuke from agreeing. He could cross that bridge when he came to it. "Good, then I'll meet you tomorrow on the side of the school." Naruto turned and left, leaving Sasuke standing alone in the foyer.

With that, Sasuke went upstairs to begin doing homework. He had an entire project he had to do, too. He silently cursed his guilt as he made his way up the stairs. If it wasn't for him offering the original deal to satisfy his own guilt, he wouldn't have so much work to do in the space of just a few weeks. Oh well, at least he won't have to worry about the fangirls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone who left me comments/kudos! Please continue providing me as much feedback as you can. :)


	3. Not So Good in Practice

Sasuke was rolling his eyes at the phone, but it didn't matter; Naruto couldn't see him. The blond was currently on the other line, trying to 'lay down the law' and be assertive. "Before I pretend to go out with you," he had begun the conversation, "we need to lay down some ground rule." So far, most of this stuff was nonsense, but Naruto was getting to some actually significant things.

Sasuke sighed heavily at the blonde's speech. The raven was sacrificing so much already by pretending to go out with the blond, he figured it couldn't hurt to indulge in some of his more benign requests.

"Then there's public displays of affection," Naruto said, moving on to the next item on his list. Sasuke sat up straight. Here's where they might have a disagreement.

"Well, we'll have to do some to make it believable," Sasuke told him. "You know, hug each other in the hallway, some hand touching at the lunch table…"

"Nothing more than a peck on the cheek," Naruto said, his tone assuring Sasuke that there was no questioning these terms. It didn't matter to him; it wasn't like he was trying to get into Naruto's pants. So no groping or kissing – it's not like he would have done that without Naruto's rules.

"Next," Naruto said, indicating he was moving on after the agreement. "Eating lunch."

"I'm not going to eat lunch with your…friends," Sasuke said, resisting the temptation to call them various names. That wouldn't really make this easier, would it? "Your friend Kiba is disgusting on a good day and revolting on a bad one, Lee is way too energetic to be near on any day, and Ino is really annoying when she gets into fangirl-mode." Sasuke paused after the last one. That might not be true, strictly speaking, anymore. She wasn't very obsessed with Sasuke anymore. The situation yesterday proved that.

"And I won't sit with you guys every day," Naruto said stubbornly. "As if dealing with you wasn't enough, I'm sure Gaara and Neji have sticks up their asses that rival your own. To make it fair, we'll spend one day at my table and the next at your table."

"Sounds fair enough," Sasuke grumbled into the phone. He wouldn't have lunch with his friends anymore. He guessed that was just the sort of sacrifice he needed to make in order to make this work.

"And lastly," Naruto said, almost trepidatiously, "if someone asks, I get to be the top." He went quiet, obviously expecting Sasuke's objection. It took Sasuke a second to understand what Naruto was saying, but when he realized, he was quick to voice his objections.

"No fucking way," Sasuke said firmly. "There's no way on earth that anyone would believe you could top anyone, let alone top me."

"It's a good thing that you're a good actor," Naruto said pointedly. "Your performance in school yesterday was proof enough of that. You want this to work? Then act the part of my wonderful little bottom."

Sasuke silently cursed. Of course Naruto would bring up the fact that he could pull off some good acting when he had to. The worst part was, was that if Naruto and Sasuke really went out, Sasuke would top; but he could still probably pull off being a bottom if he tried.

Besides, did he really have a choice?

"Fine," Sasuke growled out. "I will pretend to be your bottom," he said, stressing the 'pretend' as much as possible. He could almost hear the relief in Naruto's voice; the blond obviously expected a much larger fight.

"Alrighty, then, I'll see you at school on Monday," Naruto said before hanging up. Sasuke hung up as well before closing his eyes and laying back down on his bed.

Alright, so this wasn't the perfect outcome, but it would work. It couldn't make the situation worse.

A thought suddenly came to the Uchiha. 'What if this is a huge mistake?'

Sasuke finally made his way downstairs for some lunch, and was dismayed to find his brother and his friends already in the kitchen. This would make his entire day that much worse. He hated being around his brother, and his friends were somehow even worse.

First there was Deidara. Deidara was taller than Itachi, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a very attractive face. Deidara's only redeeming quality, in fact, was the fact that he was incredibly hot. There were many times when Sasuke fantasized about fucking the blond and running his hands all over his body. Deidara's biggest flaws were his lack of intelligence, and his constant need to be the loudest person in the room.

Then there was Kisame Hoshigaki. Kisame was probably the nicest of Itachi's friends, always trying to never intrude, even though he has been a constant figure in Itachi's life since they were in kindergarten together. When he was small, he had a disease that turned the skin on his face, hands, arms, and legs grey. The thing that Sasuke hated about Kisame was that he constantly made bad jokes, and was always trying to be too friendly. He knew just how much Sasuke hated them, but kept trying to change it.

The last person there was Nagato. Nagato was probably the most emo-looking kid that Sasuke had ever met. He was very skinny – almost unhealthily so – and had straight red hair that fell over his eyes. There was a point a few years ago when Nagato dyed his hair black, and he actually did become emo. Nagato was a very serious person who never really gave Sasuke a second thought. And Sasuke didn't mind. He didn't care for Nagato either.

Itachi, of course, had other friends, but none were here. Sasuke was grateful. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with Hidan talking about religion or Sasori arguing with Deidara about art. The absolute worst of all his friends, however, was Kakuzu. The guy was an asshole who didn't care about anything except for money. The only reason he was a part of the group was because his mother belonged to the same church as Hidan's mother, and their parents always forced them to play together as children.

"Hey Sasuke!" Deidara said loudly. Itachi and Nagato briefly glanced at Sasuke, but then looked away. They didn't really care enough to bother greeting him. Not that he cared. Kisame was the only one who actually gave a nice hello that did not break sound barriers, but Sasuke just blew it off. He used to feel somewhat bad for not giving Kisame the time of day, but by now, the older man was used to it, and shouldn't even try anymore.

Sasuke opened the door to the fridge, but closed it again after seeing that it was nearly empty. Now he was pretty pissed off. He had already told Itachi that they needed more food, but the older raven didn't go out and get any.

"I see we still don't have any food," Sasuke growled out to his brother.

"If you want something, then you can go out and get it," Itachi said simply. "I don't generally eat here that often."

God, he made Sasuke so angry. He couldn't wait for a few more months. Then he would go off to college, far away, and leave Itachi forever. There was nothing keeping him here except for the fact that Itachi had been his legal guardian for a few years, and would continue to be so until Sasuke turned eighteen in December.

He slammed the fridge shut and walked out of the room, not even paying attention to what Deidara had just called out to him.

Things between he and Itachi had been like that for a while. After their parents were killed, they were distraught, and Kakashi ended up taking them in. Well, more like they ended up taking Kakashi in, since Kakashi just moved into the mansion. But for Sasuke, life had stopped when his parents were dead. As much as Kakashi tried to pull him out, Sasuke would just be a recluse.

After a while, things got a little easier. When Sasuke started making friends, he began to open up more, and now, Kakashi was like a father to him in many ways. But Itachi would never be the brother Sasuke wanted, needed. After their parents deaths, Itachi became severely depressed and started to cut himself.

After he tried to commit suicide a few years ago, he was put in intensive therapy, and went from depressed to reclusive. He still had his friends, but he didn't act the same when he was home. For years he just ignored Sasuke as if he was gum on the bottom of his shoes. When Itachi turned eighteen two years ago, Kakashi transferred over guardianship of Sasuke to Itachi, hoping that having to be responsible for his brother would improve things between the two of them.

It didn't.

Sasuke was fifteen, and he suddenly had to take care of himself, because his brother sure wasn't doing the job. Itachi commuted to school in the city, and would often stay out late. College was good for Itachi – it helped him finally recover from their parents' deaths. But he still didn't care about Sasuke, and so Sasuke stopped caring about him. Except Sasuke couldn't feel the perfect, practiced apathy that Itachi felt for him. Instead, he ended up with just a deep resentment and loathing for this brother, and, by extension, his friends.

Instead of going out to eat, Sasuke decided to go back to his room. He didn't really want to do anything today except stay up there, and his brother's friends being there was as good an excuse as any to stay up there.

* * *

The day passed slowly, but it passed. And the next day, instead of doing nothing all day, he took $300 from Itachi's wallet and went out to go shopping. By the end of the day, the fridge, freezer, and pantries were all full, and Itachi wasn't speaking to Sasuke because of the money. Sasuke didn't care.

The next morning, Monday, started off pretty badly for Sasuke. He wasn't really a morning person, so waking up this early any day was difficult for him. He tripped over his sheets when he got out of bed, and ended up hurting his head. Then, when he was in the shower, the hot water went off, which just screamed 'Itachi.'

Despite having way more than enough money to keep up the bills, every now and then, Itachi "forgot." Sasuke suspected that he did it on purpose to throw a wrench in Sasuke's day, to show that he had some power of him, but he never said anything. He wouldn't give Itachi that satisfaction.

On his way to school, he suddenly realized that he should be happy – today was the day that Operation: Fake Boyfriend would commence. No more fangirls, no more annoyances. It would be perfect! Well, except for everyone thinking he was a bottom. But who knows? Maybe it wouldn't even come up!

When Sasuke got to the school, he stayed in his car and listened to his radio until he saw the tufts of blonde hair walking towards the building. When he finally caught sight of it, he turned the car off and got out, following his "boyfriend" into the building. He didn't catch up to him until after the blond had entered the classroom.

By the time Sasuke got there, Naruto was talking with his friends around Kiba's desk. Sasuke knew he had to do something to announce the relationship now, or else people would wonder later on in the day why we didn't tell our friends first thing in the morning. Besides, Naruto wasn't suspecting anything at the moment. It was time to show him who was in control of this relationship.

Kiba was talking animatedly as Sasuke walked up beside Naruto and gave him a peck on the cheeks. It was a shame Naruto had said that was in-bounds, because Sasuke would otherwise have never even thought to do so. Immediately, Naruto squeaked, "Sasuke!" and the rest of the room erupted in whispers. Well, except for his brunet best friend.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Uchiha?" Kiba asked. "Naruto rejected you; stop molesting him!"

"Kiba…" Naruto began, but he was cut off by his friend.

"And while you're at it," the Inuzuka continued, "get the fuck away from us."

"Kiba," Naruto repeated, this time getting Kiba's attention. But before he could speak, Sasuke decided he should get Naruto's goat, so to speak.

"You didn't tell him about us yet?" Sasuke asked Naruto, looking hurt, but really savoring the situation he had put the blond in. Kiba looked from Sasuke to Naruto with a hilariously confused expression.

"I didn't get there yet," Naruto growled out. "Kiba, Sasuke and I are…we're…well, we're sort of going out."

The reaction was instantaneous. Kiba, and Choji both shouted out a chorus of "WHAT?!" while the rest of the class erupted in whispers. Ino looked at Naruto oddly, and the blond himself closed his eyes, as if to block out the reaction from his memory.

"You told us that he was lying about you kissing him," Choji said, a confused look on his face. "You rejected him. We all saw it." Kiba was still in a state of stunned silence. Sasuke looked at Naruto expectantly. Now it was time to see if Naruto could pull off as great a performance as Sasuke could.

"He wasn't lying," Naruto told them. "The other day, I…I was confused, and I kissed him." He closed his eyes. "I didn't think it meant anything, but yesterday…"

"Yesterday he apologized for making a fool out of me in front of everyone," Sasuke offered, not knowing why he decided to bail Naruto out. "The rest of the story doesn't matter. He and I are together now, and if you really are his friends, then you won't care about him being gay."

"What do you mean 'if you really are his friends'?" Kiba asked, sounding offended. "You're an asshole, Uchiha, of course none of us care about Naruto being gay." Choji's expression showed that it also went for him, but Ino's expression looked as if she was uncomfortable with this. It was probably because she knew that Naruto was faking this whole thing. "All I care about is why he would decide to date a bastard like you."

"Kiba, he's not a bastard," Naruto said as the bell rang, indicating the start of class. Kurenai entered the class and told everyone to sit down, so Naruto found a seat next to Ino, behind Kiba. Sasuke took the seat between Naruto and Sakura. She kept trying to get Sasuke's attention, but Sasuke really wasn't going to have this conversation in the middle of English class.

Class was rather short that day, but they were paired into groups to discuss their book again. Sasuke found it kind of humorous that the ninja in the book had the same name as his "boyfriend," but he decided not to bring it up. Naruto was probably teased enough about it when they first heard the book's title.

"So what did you think about the chapter?" Naruto asked.

"I don't know," Sasuke commented. "I was really looking forward to seeing Naruto's rival – I forget his name – fighting the sand demon, but then the Sand and Sound villages had to attack and ruin it all. It was all boring after that."

"What?" Naruto asked, completely incredulous that Sasuke didn't like the rest. "You're telling me that the Third Hokage's battle with his former student was boring?"

"It wasn't too exciting," Sasuke said with a shrug. "I was really still focused on Naruto chasing down his rival and the sand demon." They continued to talk about the book until the bell rang and Sasuke got up to go to physics. Unfortunately, this gave Sakura, Neji, Hinata, and Tenten the perfect opportunity to ambush him about Naruto.

The first thing Sakura did was hug Sasuke and squee at him. "You and Naruto?" she asked excitedly, and Sasuke nodded in affirmation. "How did that happen?" she asked.

"It's a long story," Sasuke said, hoping he wouldn't have to invent a story for it.

"You're an awful boyfriend, you know," Tenten told him. "You're supposed to be walking him to class."

"It's right down the hall!" Sasuke argued.

"So?" Tenten asked. "You still have two minutes before the bell rings. Don't you want to spend as much time with him as possible?"

"I figured I'd rather talk to you guys, instead of walking with him," Sasuke said. "Besides, he has a lot to talk about with them."

Sasuke walked into class, followed by the others, and promptly sat down next to Gaara. He was grateful that Neji took the spot on his other side, so he wouldn't be bothered by incessant questions. Not a second later, Anko entered the room and decided to start the lesson, so Sakura, Tenten and Hinata ended up taking the seats behind Gaara, Neji, and Sasuke.

Sasuke found physics to be pretty interesting, but he was sure he was the only one who liked learning about vectors and forces. Why people think it's boring, Sasuke didn't know. Maybe he was just a nerd. About halfway through the period, Gaara threw a paper ball onto Sasuke's desk and nudged his head at it, silently telling the Uchiha to read it. He opened the note and saw what Gaara had written.

So what's really going on between you and Naruto?

Underneath his writing, I wrote my own response: Call me after school and I'll explain everything. For now, just go with it. Sasuke tossed the note back on the desk and resumed paying attention to the lesson.

Sasuke wouldn't keep this a secret from Gaara, mostly because Gaara would know what was up. Besides, he'd need someone to be able to tell everything to. He learned after his parents deaths that he can't keep everything to himself, and it worked the same with secrets as with feelings.

After physics, it was time for lunch, which presented the first problem to their plan: Naruto and Sasuke had never decided where to sit today. They both agreed to alternate tables, but where would they go the first day? Sasuke noticed Naruto had gotten lunch already and was standing with a tray, questioning the same problem. Sasuke shrugged, so Naruto put his tray down on Sasuke's usual table – right next to Sakura, of course.

When Sasuke finally got his lunch and was back at my table, he sat himself down right between Naruto and Gaara, facing Neji. He figured it was expected of him to sit next to his "boyfriend." That was what Neji did with Tenten, after all.

"So Naruto," Sakura said, "when did you figure out you were gay?"

"I'm not gay," Naruto said, a little too quickly and panicky for Sasuke's desire. "I'm bi. And I didn't really figure it out until the other day."

"After the kiss?" she asked, a smirk on her face.

"Uh, yeah," Naruto replied awkwardly. Sasuke couldn't blame him. He was talking to his crush about kissing another guy. It was a pretty awkward situation.

"Let's talk about something else," Sasuke suggested, hoping to relieve Naruto from having to deal with Sakura's nagging questions. Don't get him wrong – she was one of Sasuke's best friends. But she also didn't know when to stop.

"Why?" Sakura asked. "I want to know what happened this weekend to change everything. Last I heard, Naruto was still pretending he didn't like you." Yeah, pretending.

"Well, it started when I went back to his house to work on his history project," Naruto said, deciding it was his turn to save the day. As soon as he told the story, that would be what Sasuke would have to tell everyone too. He would rather come up with the story than let Sasuke do it. Besides, after they got through the initial stage of shock when everyone wants to know what happened, it would get significantly easier, the blond hoped.

"We were pretty quiet, and it was awkward," Naruto continued. "Sasuke had to let me help with the project, but I could tell he didn't really want to see me. It really hurt, and I started to realize that I really did like him, and I didn't want him to be made at me. I almost kissed him again, but he stopped me and told me that if I wanted to kiss him, I'd have to tell the truth to everyone. We talked for a while after that; he helped me realize that coming out would be a good thing, and that we could be free to date openly."

"That's so sweet!" Sakura cooed. It was a pretty good fabrication, and Sasuke was pretty impressed. It was realistic, and just romantic enough to get people to give them the benefit of the doubt. Sasuke heard the tell-tale sound of 'awws' behind him, and he turned to look at his fangirl table. Now, usually, the fangirl table was made of two tables pushed together so that more people could sit, but today there were two separate tables. One had girls that were cooing and awwwing, and the other had girls who looked either depressed or angry.

"What's going on with them?" Sasuke asked the girls at the table. They probably knew what was up – girls love to talk.

"A lot of them are angry at Naruto because they think he stole you from them," Sakura explained to the Uchiha. "But there are a lot who are happy for you and think…well, that you two are pretty, uh, hot together." Sakura blushed a little bit at the comment, and Sasuke was suddenly speechless.

"You're kidding me," Sasuke said incredulously. "I have two sects of fangirls now?"

Sakura nodded in response. "A lot of people are joining the sect of girls who think that you two are great together. It's not just people who were your fangirls anymore, Sasuke."

"I'm getting more fangirls?" Sasuke asked, horrified. It took all of his strength not to end the deal with Naruto right then and there.

"At least they're not bothering you," Hinata pointed out, and Sasuke was grateful for the bright side. It was true. Even though he was getting more fangirls, they were all respecting his space so far. No one was intruding, even the ones who were mad at Naruto.

"They're so cute," Sakura said of the girls at the bigger table. "They even gave you guys a cute nickname like Bradgelina and Bennifer." Sasuke was about to ask what their nickname was, somewhat afraid to know, but Sakura told them anyway. "SasuNaru," she told them. "It has a ring to it."

"Why does he get top billing?" Naruto complained with a pout. "NaruSasu sounds so much better."

"Seriously?" Sasuke asked Naruto with an unbelieving expression. "You find out that we're a part of some sort of supercouple, and your only concern is about whose name comes first in the nickname?"

"It's not my only concern," Naruto said. "It's just the top priority right now."

"Just wait until Naruto finds out why Sasuke has top billing," Tenten whispered to Sakura, catching the blonde's attention.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked with a slightly offended expression. "Why is his name first?"

"Because they're all pretty sure that he's the top," Sakura said offhandedly, and Sasuke smirked in his seat. He was going to love this. He told Naruto that no one would believe he was a top, and here was the proof. "It was pretty unanimous," she added, making Naruto even more offended.

"WHAT!?" he yelled, jumping out of his seat and pointing at the table of fangirls. "Why would Sasuke be the top? That makes no sense!" Sasuke reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him back down.

"Shut up, Naruto," he growled. "Don't make a scene."

"That's easy for you to say," he said with a pout. "No one thinks you're the bottom."

"So you haven't decided who's on top yet?" Sakura asked deviously. "You might want to figure that out soon."

"Do you mind?" Neji asked as he swallowed a bite of his lunch. "Some of us are trying to eat here, and that's significantly harder when you start talking about Sasuke and Naruto having sex."

Sakura and Naruto got quiet, and everyone continued to eat. Suddenly, Hinata looked up from her lunch and spoke up. "S-Sasuke, you might want to turn around." Sasuke listened and turned around, and was incredibly surprised to see who had just entered the cafeteria. Why would he come to school?

"Sasuke," Itachi called out with a smile on his face. That was what tipped Sasuke off. Itachi only smiled when it came to Sasuke if he was about to embarrass or humiliate him somehow, like when Naruto came over to his house the other day. Otherwise, Itachi was incredibly apathetic towards his brother. The fact that he looked happy right now was clearly a red light.

He walked over towards Sasuke's table with that shit-eating grin on his face. "What do you want?" Sasuke asked venomously, hoping that he could avoid being humiliated in front of the whole school. What gave Itachi the right to do this? What kind of security did this school have?

"Oh, little brother," Itachi said with that grin that made Sasuke want to scream. "You forgot you lunch at home. He gave Sasuke a paper bag, which Sasuke looked at momentarily. Written in sharpie were the words I heard about you and Naruto. Sasuke growled and put the paper bag on the table. How could Itachi find out already?

"We both know I don't bring my lunch," Sasuke said as Sakura began to look through the bag. He had no idea what Itachi wanted from –. He turned around and quickly snatched the bag from Sakura, whose face was red, and looked through the contents himself. "Condoms?" he asked incredulously. "Really Itachi?"

"I didn't want to embarrass you in front of your friends, Sasuke," Itachi said with the fakest smile Sasuke had ever seen. His voice got slightly louder "But if you want to announce to the whole school that I had to bring you condoms, then go ahead." Conversations started stopping around the cafeteria as people hushed to listen in. Sasuke could see Naruto's usual table across the cafeteria staring at the table in a mix of amusement and embarrassment. Sasuke looked at the rest of his table for help, but he saw Gaara trying to contain a smirk, which pissed him off even more. It figures that the one time he shows emotion, it's glee towards Sasuke's predicament. Well, maybe not glee. No one should ever use the words 'Gaara' and 'glee' in the same sentence. Ever.

"You two have already started having sex?" Sakura exclaimed all-too-loudly for Sasuke's liking. Leave it to her to fall right into Itachi's trap.

"No," Sasuke and Naruto insisted at the same time. In response, Gaara reached out and grabbed the bag.

"No point in letting these go to waste," he said, starting to put the paper bag in his backpack. Sasuke almost facepalmed. He was surrounded by idiots, assholes, and freaks. And why the hell was Gaara taking condoms? It's not like he would use them.

"Oh Sasuke," Itachi said with a smirk. "I could almost believe you if I didn't hear all those sounds last night." Speaking of sounds, with the exception of Itachi's voice, the cafeteria was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, and every single person could hear Itachi's every word. "Even I've never been able to go six rounds in a row."

Squeals could be heard from the SasuNaru fangirls, while growls and cries could be heard from the anti-Naruto fangirls. A lot of guys around the room started coughing disgustedly, and if you listened really closely, you could hear some chuckling under the breath of one giant asshole who was standing right in front of Sasuke. His only consolation was that he was not alone in his humiliation; Naruto was just as horrified, maybe even moreso.

"You better learn to sleep with one eye open," Sasuke threatened.

"I probably won't be able to go to sleep, anyway," Itachi said with a shrug. "Not with you and Naruto two rooms away. It's surprising how loud I can hear you two when the walls are so thick." Sasuke was starting to physically shake from anger, and he honestly considered punching his brother right now. Could he be suspended for that?

"Oh, Sasuke," Itachi moaned, pretending to imitate Naruto, or at least how Naruto would have sounded if he and Sasuke did fuck six times last night. "Yeah, you're so tight." It took him a moment to understand what his brother was implying, but when the realization hit, his jaw dropped.

He just implied that Sasuke was bottom. And he couldn't object without breaking his rules with Naruto. The trembling with anger returned, and Sasuke was about to tackle Itachi to the ground, he felt a hand touch his own and looked over at Naruto, who had a serious expression on his face. Somehow, the small action seemed to calm Sasuke slightly, but he still couldn't figure out how to escape this situation.

Thank god the bell rang, because Sasuke couldn't handle any more of this. Itachi gave him a taunting smirk, so Sasuke just grabbed his backpack, stood up, and pushed past Itachi, shoving him out of the way. As soon as Sasuke was out of the cafeteria, Naruto got up to chase him, and the rest of the student body decided the fun was over and they should move on to their next class.

Sasuke didn't really care anymore at this point. He decided he was going to blow off the rest of the period, and maybe even the period after that. He just needed something to calm him down. He passed the security guard, who called out to him, but Sasuke didn't listen. He knew he'd probably end up with a detention for skipping, but he couldn't care less.

He heard Naruto shouting after him, and briefly wondered why Naruto would follow him out like that. Naruto should have gone ahead to class. Sasuke kept walking though, he wasn't ready to turn around and face him. But Naruto was persistent, and before they were two blocks away from the school, Naruto had caught up to him.

"What do you want?" Sasuke asked angrily, trying to keep himself from completely falling apart. He can't believe he was so humiliated!

"What the fuck just happened back there?" Naruto asked.

"Itachi happened," Sasuke told him, not looking at him. "You saw how he was when you came over to the mansion. He made comments to you for the sole purpose of embarrassing me. This was no different. It was just…harsher than usual." He looked over at the blond again. "You should go back to class."

"So should you," Naruto stated.

"I'm not going back to class," Sasuke said simply. "I think I'm going to my uncle's bar. I need a drink after all the shit that just went down."

"Then I'm coming with you," Naruto decided. "I don't have a fake, but you can get me something."

"Why?" Sasuke asked suspiciously. "Why do you want to come with me?"

"It was just as embarrassing for me," Naruto said, matter-of-factly. "Besides, I can't let you drink alone. You'd look too pathetic." Sasuke rolled his eyes and turned around, but Naruto followed him. Instead of continuing down the street, they turned around and got Sasuke's car from the parking lot before heading into the city.

Mangekyo was an old bar that had been around since before Prohibition. After his family moved to the US, Sasuke's father bought the bar. When he and his mother decided to settle down, they decided to sell it to Sasuke's uncle Madara. Madara looked exactly the same as his brother Fugaku, just slightly older. Their personalities, however, couldn't be more far apart.

Madara wasn't there that day. Instead, the bar was being overseen and tended to by Danzo, one of Madara's best workers. Danzo was older than dirt, but he did a good job, so it didn't really matter much. He'd been with the bar since Sasuke's parents owned it.

"Hello there, Sasuke," Danzo said when he saw the raven enter with Naruto. "Who's your friend?"

"No one important, Danzo," Sasuke replied, earning a 'hey!' from Naruto that both Sasuke and Danzo ignored. "I'll have my usual." Danzo's face suddenly darkened.

"Sasuke, you know I can't do that," the old man said.

"I know my uncle's not here," Sasuke said, sitting down on a bar stood. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Besides, don't you think he'd rather I drink under the safe watch of his most trusted worker than at some dive bar where nobody could watch over me?" Sasuke knew exactly how to manipulate this old man, and it worked like a charm. He didn't like it, but he ended up giving Sasuke a gin and tonic.

"Can I get something fruity?" Naruto asked Danzo, and the bartender obliged. Sasuke rolled his eyes as a pink drink with an orange umbrella was placed in front of the blond. "He doesn't even care that we're not twenty-one?" Naruto asked Sasuke as he drank his drink.

"You're with me," Sasuke said simply. "Besides, they're not too strict. My Uncle Madara has ways to keep the police from busting them as long as he doesn't make a reputation as the place for underage drinking."

"Why did Danzo not want to serve you?" Naruto asked the raven, to which Sasuke shrugged.

"I had a small problem a few years ago with alcohol," he explained simply. "Kakashi and Uncle Madara agreed that I can't be allowed to drink anymore, so they cut me off. But that was a while ago. I'm not so bad now."

Sasuke lied.

After about an hour and a half of drinking and talking, Naruto had just finished his second drink, while Sasuke was finishing his eighth. Naruto found casual drinking to be okay, but Sasuke was just being ridiculous. No one could argue that Sasuke wasn't drunk off his face. Of course, Naruto didn't particularly mind drunk Sasuke. He was a lot more fun and loose. Maybe he could even glean a secret out of him if he tried. Which girl he liked, or something else ridiculously embarrassing.

Not that Naruto wanted to embarrass him after today; but if he had some leverage over the Uchiha, it would make life easier. After the way Sasuke manipulated him into pretending to be his boyfriend, he had to admit that the Uchiha was devious. In fact, he could almost call Itachi's surprise at lunch just desserts.

"So what happened next?" Naruto asked the drunk raven. "Gaara just went home?"

"Nope," Sasuke said with a slur. "Nah, Gaara…he decided to go to a different party and make out with that bitch's boyfriend." Sasuke started hysterically laughing at the tale, and even Naruto could admit it was a little funny. But still…

"Gaara's gay?" Naruto asked.

"Duh," Sasuke slurred, not realizing he just outed his best friend. "He likes to joke around about it a lot though. The party story, not the gay thing. He takes that seriously."

"Wouldn't you?" Naruto asked with a chuckle. Sasuke snorted in response and simply said, "no." Naruto called over Danzo "Maybe we should cut him off. I'm not looking forward to driving him home." Danzo nodded, but Sasuke got offended.

"Hey, what's the big idea, dickhole?" Sasuke asked. "I'm not drunk."

"Sure you're not," Naruto said with as much sarcasm in his voice as he could muster.

"I'm not," Sasuke insisted, standing up. "Look, I'mma walk a straight line and show you." Sasuke slowly tried to walk a straight line behind their bar stools, but tripped right as Naruto turned around to watch. Sasuke ended up falling on top of Naruto, between his legs. Naruto was too startled to move, but Sasuke lifted his head, looking into Naruto's eyes.

He never really noticed his eyes before. They were a deep blue, somewhat like Deidara's, but not as dark. His hair was similar too. It might not be as long, but it was certainly the same color. Without a thought in his head, Sasuke raised his hand to run through Naruto's hair. It felt like sunshine. "You look like Deidara," Sasuke explained before pressing his lips to the blonde's.

Naruto froze when he felt Sasuke's lips against his. His first instinct was to push away, but he momentarily wondered what Sasuke meant by 'You look like Deidara.' Who was Deidara? Was he talking about that guy who was a senior when they were freshmen? That was the only Deidara he'd ever met.

Sasuke opened his mouth and swiped his tongue against Naruto's closed lips, asking for entrance. This was probably what made Naruto realized that they were kissing in the middle of a bar, and pulled away quickly. He stood up, accidentally dropping Sasuke to the ground, and ran out of the bar. When Sasuke got up, he looked out the door and then back at the remainder of his drink.

Danzo told Sasuke he was going to call someone to take him home, and Sasuke told him to call Gaara, giving him his phone. He didn't want Itachi or Kakashi to see him like this. After a bit, he got up and walked to the bathroom, hoping to splash his face with water to sober him up, even just a little bit.

When he looked up at the mirror, he saw a man behind him, giving him a glare. He was muscular and tall, with reddish-brown hair and red eyes that looked to be more slits than circles. He had an evil aura about him, and he creeped Sasuke out.

"Who was that boy you kissed?" he asked, his voice about as rough and sratchy as Sasuke would suspect. In his drunken state, Sasuke scoffed, not understanding the danger of his situation.

"That's nunya business, mister," Sasuke said with an attempted glare in his voice.

"I asked you a question," the man said, slowly approaching Sasuke.

"Do you know who I am?" Sasuke asked loudly. "My uncle owns this bar, and I'll have you kicked out. So stop being so…mean." The intimidating man got closer, but the door to the bathroom opened and Gaara stepped in, causing the man to back off.

"What's going on here?" Gaara asked.

"Gaara!" Sasuke exclaimed. He pointed towards the big guy. "This guy's been mean to me. Make him cry. Do your evil glare." Gaara rolled his eyes. When Sasuke was drunk, he was probably louder and more obnoxious than Sakura.

"Where did Naruto go?" Gaara asked Sasuke, moving to support the teen as they walked out.

"He ditched me after I kissed him," Sasuke said with a scoff as they left the bathroom. "Some boyfriend he is." The door slammed shut behind them, and Gaara led Sasuke out to his car. They would come and pick up Sasuke's some other time. Until then, he had to get Sasuke back to the school and to Kakashi without Principal Tsunade seeing him.

Luckily, they made it back to school before Kakashi's class, and Gaara managed to sneak Sasuke in past the security guard. He walked Sasuke up the stairs to where Kakashi's office was located. Kakashi was somewhat shocked to see the raven in such a state, but helped Gaara bring him to the psychology classroom.

"I'll just post a note saying that class is canceled today," Kakashi said, getting a pen and a piece of paper from the teacher's desk.

"I don't get why you're all makin' such a big deal about this," Sasuke said, barely even trying not to slur anymore. "I'm perf'ctly fine guys."

"You're not perfectly fine, Sasuke," Kakashi said, taping the note to the door. "You're gonna tell me why you did this, and you're going to tell me now."

"Make. Me." Sasuke said, sounding like a petulant four-year-old. Gaara rolled his eyes and decided to fill Kakashi in on Itachi's antics regarding Sasuke and Naruto, going on to explain that Sasuke and Naruto are together.

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, you say Naruto and Sasuke are together?" he asked. "Great. Go get Naruto. Tell him he still has class today. His job is to drive Sasuke back to the mansion and get him into bed. Then he's to come straight back here for the next period."

"There's a problem," Gaara said. "Apparently Naruto and Sasuke got into some sort of tiff at the bar. Knowing Sasuke, he probably did something incredibly stupid." Kakashi sighed. "I'll go get him anyway, and I'll explain everything to him."

"Thank you," Kakashi said, hoping that Gaara could convince Naruto to do this for him. His prayers were answered. Twenty minutes later – right before the bell to the next class rang – Gaara returned with Naruto in tow.

"I'll take him home," Naruto said awkwardly, eyeing the now unconscious Uchiha sitting at a chair.

Naruto had only been at the Uchiha mansion once before, so he was amazed that he was able to remember how to get there. He got basic directions from Kakashi and Gaara as they helped sneak Sasuke out into the parking lot, and managed to get there without issue. His bigger problem was getting Sasuke into the mansion while avoiding Itachi.

"Sasuke," Naruto urged, shaking the Uchiha to wake him up. He lightly slapped Sasuke's cheeks before he reached in the back seat to grab a half-empty bottle of water. He uncapped it and poured the water down Sasuke's head. The reaction wasn't instantaneous, but it was there. Sasuke groggily woke up. "Sasuke, we're home. Mr. Hatake wants me to put you into bed for him."

"Naruto?" Sasuke asked, not really sure what was going on.

"I'm gonna unbuckle your seat and then come around to open your door, okay?" Naruto asked, doing as he told Sasuke he would. After he opened up the passenger side door, he helped Sasuke out, and caught him when he stumbled. "Let's get you upstairs, alright?" He supported Sasuke as he stood up and walked towards the mansion and walked up the stairs to the bedroom. Luckily, they were able to avoid Itachi.

Naruto helped Sasuke take off his now-wet shirt and get into bed. He was just about to leave the Uchiha alone when Sasuke called out.

"Why did you do that for me?" Sasuke asked, still drunk off his ass. "I d'dn't ask you f'r help."

"You told me you had a problem with alcohol, and I let you drink way past your limit," Naruto explained. "When Gaara told me you were barely standing on your own, I felt guilty, so I told him I'd help. Now I have to get back to class."

"There's only one class left," Sasuke said, looking at the clock. "Stay with me." Naruto considered leaving, but decided that it wouldn't hurt to miss class. He didn't really need to deal with Jiraya's health class. As much as he loved the guy – he was practically his godfather – he couldn't handle how perverse he could be. Instead, he sat down on the foot of the bed.

"'m sorry f'r kissin' you," Sasuke mumbled, turning over in the bed so he was facing the blond. "I sh'dn't h've done that."

"Why did you, then?" Naruto asked, wondering if Sasuke would even remember this conversation the next day.

"Dunno," Sasuke admitted, trying to stay awake to talk to the blond.

"Sasuke, are you…" Naruto began, but he trailed off. Would it be crossing a line to ask the question? Sasuke opened his eyes and looked at him expectantly. "Y'know…gay?"

Sasuke's face broke out into a smirk. "Why, Nar'to? D'ya wanna fuck me?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Naruto couldn't tell whether to be horrified or amused.

"Are you?" he asked, and Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"No, I jus' like ta kiss guys," Sasuke said in a happy tone of voice. "But 'm not gay." Naruto furrowed his brows. Was Sasuke trying to make a joke? Be sarcastic? "Of course I am." Sasuke looked like he was going to continue talking, but he fell asleep instead. And Naruto was relieved. He didn't want to have to deal with this right now. Instead, he hightailed it out of the Uchiha mansion.


End file.
